Ellagic acid, a polyphenolic compound present in fruits and berries, has recently been object of extensive research for its antioxidant activity, which might be useful for the prevention and treatment of cancer, cardiovascular pathologies, and neurodegenerative disorders. Its protective role justifies numerous attempts to include it in functional food preparations and in dietary supplements not only to limit the unpleasant collateral effects of chemotherapy. However, ellagic acid use as chemopreventive agent has been debated because of its poor bioavailability associated to low solubility, limited permeability, first pass effect, and interindividual variability in gut microbial transformations. To overcome these drawbacks, various strategies for oral administration including solid dispersions, micro-nanoparticles, inclusion complexes, self-emulsifying systems, polymorphs have been proposed. Here, we have listed an updated description of pursued micro/nanotechnological approaches focusing on the fabrication processes and the features of the obtained products, as well as on the positive results yielded by in vitro and in vivo studies in comparison to the raw material. The micro/nano-sized formulations here described might be exploited for pharmaceutical delivery of this active, as well as for the production of nutritional supplements or for the enrichment of novel foods.

Human metapneumovirus is one of major causes of common cold among children, especially infants. Its key enzyme is RNA-dependent RNA-polymerase, which performs both replication and transcription, including capping and cap methylation. The goal of the work is to find possible inhibitors of RNA-dependent RNA-polymerase across the active compounds of Rosaceae plants. The candidates were selected by molecular docking to cap-transferring domain of RNA-polymerase (PDB ID: 4UCZ) in Autodock VINA. Among all the substances tested by docking, ellagic acid derivatives showed the most promising results (affinity values below -10 kcal/mol). Hence, they could be treated as possible candidate drugs against metapneumoviral infection after experimental examination. The main advantage of using these substances should be their low toxicity, which is quite uncommon for selective RNA polymerase inhibitors used in clinical practice. Occurrence of ellagic acid derivatives among the plants from Rosaceae family like raspberry could explain their effect during common cold.

Toward the standardization of O. biennis sprout extract (OBS-E), we aimed to obtain indicator compounds, using a validated method. HPLC-UVD allowed simultaneous quantification of indicator compounds quercetin 3-glucuronide and ellagic acid. The method was validated in terms of specificity, linearity, precision, accuracy, and limit of detection/limit of quantification (LOD/LOQ). High specificity and linearity was demonstrated, with correlation coefficients of 1.0000 for quercetin 3-glucuronide and 0.9998 for ellagic acid. The LOD/LOQ values were 0.486/1.472 μg/mL for quercetin 3-glucuronide and 1.003/3.039 μg/mL for ellagic acid. Intra-day and inter-day variability tests produced relative standard deviation for each compound of <2%, a generally accepted precision criterion. High recovery rate were also obtained, indicating accuracy validation. The OBS-E prepared using various concentrations of ethanol were then analyzed. The 50% ethanol extract had highest content of quercetin 3-glucuronide, whereas the 70% ethanol extract possessed the lowest. However, the ellagic acid content was highest in the 70% ethanol extract and lowest in the 90% ethanol extract. Thus, quercetin 3-glucuronide and ellagic acid can be used industrially as indicator compounds for O. biennis sprout products, and our validated method can be used to establish indicator compounds for other natural products.

Polyphenol ellagic acid (EA) possesses anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic, anti-diabetic and cardio protection activities, remarking it an interesting multi-targeting profile. EA also controls the central nervous system (CNS) since it was proven to reduce the immobility time of mice in both the forced swimming and the tail-suspension tests, with an efficiency comparable to that of classic antidepressants. Interestingly, the anti-depressant-like effect was almost nulled by the concomitant administration of selective antagonists of the noradrenergic receptors, suggesting the involvement of these cellular targets in the central effects elicited by EA and its derivatives. By in silico and in vitro studies, we discuss how EA engages with human α2A-ARs and α2C-AR catalytic pockets, comparing EA behaviour with those ones of known agonist and antagonist. Structurally, the hydrophobic residues surrounding α2A-AR pocket confer specificity on the intermolecular interactions and hence lead to favourable binding of EA in the α2A-AR, with respect to α2C-AR. Moreover, EA seems to better accommodate within α2A-ARs into TM5 area, closely to S200 and S204 which play a crucial role for activation of aminergic GPCRs such as the α2-AR, highlighting its promising role as a partial agonist. Consistently, EA mimics clonidine in inhibiting noradrenaline exocytosis from hippocampal nerve endings in an yohimbine-sensitive fashion that confirms the engagement of naïve α2-ARs in the EA-mediated effect.

Our previous in vitro reports showed that crude extract prepared with 50% ethanol (ethanol crude extract, ECE) from Mongolian oak cups possessed excellent antioxidant capacities as well as inhibitory activities against α-glucosidase, α-amylase and protein glycation caused by its enrichment in phenolics, including mainly ellagic acid, kaempferol and their derivatives. Nevertheless, few in vivo studies on antidiabetic activities of these phenolics were conducted. The present study investigated hypoglycemic effects with normal and diabetic rats being administrated orally without or with ECE at 200 and 800 mg/kg for 15 days. In normal rats, no significant differences were exhibited after ECE administration in body weight, fasting blood glucose level, levels of chelesterol, triglyceride, LDL and AST in serum, organ indexes, and levels of GSH and MDA in organs. In diabetic rats, the fasting blood glucose level, indexes of heart and liver, and levels of chelesterol and triglyceride in serum and MDA in heart tissue were significantly decreased. Moreover, HDL levels in serum and SOD activities in the four organs of diabetic rats were significantly improved after ECE administration at 800 mg/kg. Thus, in addition to inhibiting α-glucosidase, α-amylase and protein glycation reported previously, oak cups might contain novel dietary phytonutrients in preventing abnormal changes in blood glucose and lipid profile and attenuating oxidant stress in vivo. The results also implied that it is ellagic acid, kaempferol and their derivatives enriched in ECE that might play vital roles in managing type 1 as well as type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes mellitus is the fifth deadliest disease in the developing countries. Even with all the research and new drugs available, combating diabetes is still challenging. There are successes in finding new cost effective drugs without side effects, even if not perfect. In our investigation we studied binding mechanism of secondary metabolite of T. chebula in silico. It was observed that three compounds out of 16 have a higher binding affinity for the target proteins. Ellagic acid showed highest binding affinity with alpha amylase, beta glucosidase and alpha glucosidase with lesser binding energies -4.5kcal/mol, -5.36kcal/mol and -4.48kcal/mol respectively. Arjungenin has lesser binding energy of 4.77 kcal/mol with glucokinase while luteoline has binding energy of -7.25kcal/mol for enzyme glycogen synthase kinase. These entire compounds interacted with non-covalent interaction. Petroleum ether extract showed the significant alpha amylase inhibitory activity i.e. 51.22% as compared to standard drug (65.99%).TLC analysis revealed the presence of total 9 compounds in different plant extracts one of them might be a lead compound which could be further exploited for the development of novel safer and potent antidiabetic drug.