Global Natural Product Social Molecular Networking (GNPS) is an interactive online small molecule-focused tandem mass spectrometry (MS 2 ) data curation and analysis infrastructure. It is intended to provide as much chemical insight as possible into an untargeted MS 2 dataset and to connect this chemical insight to the user's underlying biological questions. This can be performed within one liquid chromatography (LC)-MS 2 experiment or at the repository scale. GNPS-MassIVE is a public data repository for untargeted MS 2 data with sample information (metadata) and annotated MS 2 spectra. These publicly accessible data can be annotated and updated with the GNPS infrastructure keeping a continuous record of all changes. This knowledge is disseminated across all public data; it is a living dataset. Molecular networking-one of the main analysis tools used within the GNPS platform-creates a structured data table that reflects the molecular diversity captured in tandem mass spectrometry experiments by computing the relationships of the MS 2 spectra as spectral similarity. This protocol provides step-by-step instructions for creating reproducible, high-quality molecular networks. For training purposes, the reader is led through a 90-to 120-min procedure that starts by recalling an example public dataset and its sample information and proceeds to creating and interpreting a molecular network. Each data analysis job can be shared or cloned to disseminate the knowledge gained, thus propagating information that can lead to the discovery of molecules, metabolic pathways, and ecosystem/community interactions.

Herein, we present a protocol for the use of Global Natural Products Social (GNPS) Molecular Networking, an interactive online chemistry-focused mass spectrometry data curation and analysis infrastructure. The goal of GNPS is to provide as much chemical insight for an untargeted tandem mass spectrometry data set as possible and to connect this chemical insight to the underlying biological questions a user wishers to address. This can be performed within one experiment or at the repository scale. GNPS not only serves as a public data repository for untargeted tandem mass spectrometry data with the sample information (metadata), it also captures community knowledge that is disseminated via living data across all public data. One or the main analysis tools used by the GNPS community is molecular networking. Molecular networking creates a structured data table that reflects the chemical space from tandem mass spectrometry experiments via computing the relationships of the tandem mass spectra through spectral similarity. This protocol provides step-by-step instructions for creating reproducible high-quality molecular networks. For training purposes, the reader is led through the protocol from recalling a public data set and its sample information to creating and interpreting a molecular network. Each data analysis job can be shared or cloned to disseminate the knowledge gained, thus propagating information that can lead to the discovery of molecules, metabolic pathways, and ecosystem/community interactions.

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Many herbal medicinal products have been found to contain synthetic prescription drugs as chemical adulterants. This has become evident by the number of toxicity cases and adverse reactions reported in which casualties were reported via analytical techniques that detected the presence of chemical adulterants in them, which could be responsible for their toxicity. The adulteration of herbal medicinal products with synthetic drugs continues to be a serious problem for regulatory agencies. This review provides up to date information on cases of toxicity, major chemical adulterants in herbal medicinal products, and current analytical techniques used for their detection.

The attraction of novel foods proceeds alongside epidemic cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, and related risk factors. Dieticians have identified chia (Salvia hispanica) as a product with a catalog of potential health benefits relating to these detriments. Chia is currently consumed not only as seeds, but also as oil, which brings about similar effects. Chia seeds and chia seed oil are used mainly as a food commodity and the oil is also used popularly as a dietary ingredient used in various dietary supplements available in the U. S. market. Chia seed is rich in α-linolenic acid, the biological precursor to eicosapentaenoic acid, a polyunsaturated fatty acid, and docosahexaenoic acid. Because the body cannot synthesize α-linolenic acid, chia has a newfound and instrumental role in diet. However, the inconclusive nature of the scientific communityʼs understanding of its safety warrants further research and appropriate testing. The focus of this work is to summarize dietary health benefits of S. hispanica seed and oil to acknowledge concerns of adverse events from its ingestion, to assess current research in the field, and to highlight the importance of quality compendial standards to support safe use. To achieve this end, a large-scale literature search was partaken on the two well-known databases, PubMed and SciFinder. Hundreds of articles detailing such benefits as decreased blood glucose, decreased waist circumference and weight in overweight adults, and improvements in pruritic skin and endurance in distance runners have been recorded. These benefits must be considered within the appropriate circumstances.

Use of herbal dietary supplements by the public is common and has been happening for centuries. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has a limited scope of regulation over marketed herbal dietary supplements, which may contain toxic botanical compounds that pose a public health risk. While the Food and Drug Administration has made efforts to prohibit the sale of unsafe herbal dietary supplements, numerous reports have proliferated of adverse events due to these supplements. This literature review investigates bioactive plant compounds commonly used in herbal dietary supplements and their relative toxicities. Using primarily the National Library of Medicine journal database and SciFinder for current reports, 47 toxic compounds in 55 species from 46 plant families were found to demonstrate harmful effects due to hepatic, cardiovascular, central nervous system, and digestive system toxicity. This review further contributes a novel and comprehensive view of toxicity across the botanical dietary market, and investigates the toxicity of the top ten botanical dietary supplements purchased in the United States of America to gauge the exposure risk of toxicity to the public. The criteria of measuring toxicity in this review (plant compound, family, quantity, and toxicity effects) across the entire market in the United States, with special attention to those supplements whose exposure to the consumer is maximal, provides a unique contribution to the investigation of botanical supplements.

This TDR=WHO project was carried out from 2003 to 2005 in an 0.1-ha biodiversity plot in the Altos de Campana National Park to discover novel active antiparasitic and larvicidal compounds in Panamanian plants. One-hundred-fifty organic plant extracts representing 43 families, 73 genera, and 93 species were tested in a panel of antimalarial (Plasmodium falciparum W2, chloroquine resistant), antileishmanial (Leishmania mexicana amastigotes), antitrypanosomal (Trypanosoma cruzi trypomastigotes), and larvicidal (Aedes aegypti) screens. Of these 150 plant extracts, two (1.3%) (Talisia nervosa and Topobea parasitica) showed significant antimalarial activity (IC 50 values <10 mg=ml), two (1.3%) (Cestrum megalophyllum and Zanthoxylum acuminatum) weak antileishmanial activity (IC 50 values ranging from 10 to 20 mg=ml), one (0.6%) (Zanthoxylum acuminatum) weak antitrypanosomal activity (IC 50 values ranging from 10 to 20 mg=ml), and one (0.6%) (Piper fimbriulatum) larvicidal activity (LC 100 values <30 mg=ml). Ethyl gallate (1) and methyl gallate (2) were isolated from stems of Talisia nervosa by bioassay-guided fractionation. Both (1) and (2) showed weak in vitro antiplasmodial activity against P. falciparum (IC 50 35.3 mM and IC 50 38.0 mM, respectively), but both compounds were less active than chloroquine (IC 50 0.088 mM). Moreover, compounds (1) (IC 50 33.1 mM) and (2) (IC 50 33.6 mM) showed weakly antileishmanial activity (miltefosine: IC 50 0.5 mM), but they were not cytotoxic to Vero mammalian cells.