Bioactivity and chemical characterization in hydrophilic and lipophilic compounds of Chenopodium ambrosioides L

TL;DR: The studied plant proved to be a good source of natural antioxidants and other bioactive compounds, which may have industrial use, and is the first detailed chemical characterization and bioactivity evaluation of C. ambrosioides methanolic extract and infusion.

About: This article is published in Journal of Functional Foods.The article was published on 2013-10-01 and is currently open access. It has received 257 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Chenopodium ambrosioides.

Summary

Introduction

• Anxiety about democracy is widespread globally as elected governments themselves undermine basic tenets of democracy in their quest to remain in power or to achieve fundamental political or social change.
• The authors call this phenomenon democratic hypocrisy or the notion that support for democratic norms are conditioned on one’s preferences for the office holder, i.e. whether one’s co-partisans are in power or in the opposition.
• Recent conjoint experimental studies have attempted to tackle these problems by evaluating voter candidate choices based on policies, partisanship and democracy-eroding positions, with mixed results.
• Third, their analysis also reveals an important role of individual differences: democratic hypocrisy is much more pronounced among those with stronger partisan identities.

Hypotheses

• The authors hypotheses are as follows: H1: Citizens are more supportive of democratic norm erosion when co-partisans are in power.
• Higher perceptions of out-group threat and the intensity of partisan identity increase support for democratic norm erosion when co-partisans are in power, also known as H2.
• Coppock and McClellan (2018) show that treatment effect estimates obtained on Lucid match those obtained on both MTurk and probability samples quite well.
• For the next set of questions about the government, imagine this scenario:.
• In this specification their hypothesis implies that the differences in support for norm eroding policies across conditions with the in-party and out-party in power should increase with partisan social identity and out-group threat.

Discussion

• In line with previous findings, Republicans tolerate democratic norm erosion more than Democrats, even when the authors strip the political context by giving the hypothetical scenarios.
• But additionally, both Democrats and Republicans exhibit sizable democratic hypocrisy supporting power-solidifying policies when their preferred parties are in power.
• This is the first study to take into account the context of who is in power when assessing citizen attitudes towards democratic erosion.
• Carey, John, Katherine Clayton, Gretchen Helmke, Brendan Nyhan, Mitchell Sander, Susan Stokes.
• How Politics Became The authors Identity, also known as Uncivil Agreement.

Supreme court

• It is 2021, and the [Democrats/Republicans] have captured both the Senate and the presidency.
• They have the opportunity to change the Supreme Court.
• The Constitution does not state how many justices should be on the Supreme Court and in the 19th century the Congress changed the number of justices several times.
• Some people say that the majority in the Senate should be able to change the number of justices on the Supreme Court, even if the opposing party disagrees.
• Others say that the Supreme Court should stay at the current size of nine justices, even if it is imbalanced politically.

Judges

• Now imagine that the [Democrats/Republicans] have won a 51% majority in the Senate in the 2020 elections.
• It did this through the filibuster rule requiring 60% approval to hold a vote on an appointment, although the appointment vote itself only requires a 51% approval.
• In the last 7 years, though, the Democrats and Republicans have each reduced the filibuster so that currently, the majority party alone is able to appoint lifetime judges, including the Supreme Court.
• Others say that the filibuster should be restored in order to encourage the practice of bipartisan consensus for these appointments.
• · Allow the majority party to appoint lifetime judges.

Redistricting

• The new [Democrat/Republican] governor and legislature in your state will need to decide how to draw the voting districts after the 2020 census population count.
• The constitution allows the states to decide who will draw the voting districts.
• Some people say that whichever party is in the majority in each state should be able to draw voting district lines that give them additional seats in the legislature.
• And others say that a non-partisan independent body should draw voting district lines to eliminate advantages to one party or the other.

Vote suppression

• Imagine that in 2021, the new [Democrat/Republican] governor and legislature in your state will vote on a proposal to remove voters from the voter rolls if they have not voted in the last two elections.
• This may especially impact inactive [Republicans/Democrats]s who didn't turn out in large numbers in these elections.
• Some people say that the state government should clean up the voter rolls by removing voters if they have not voted in the last two elections.
• Others say that it is a constitutional right to vote and voter names should not be removed once they have registered.
• They should stay on the roll Democratic Values - Executive constraint.

Executive orders

• Imagine that it's 2021 and the [Democrats/Republicans] have won the presidency, but not the Congress.
• Legally, the president has authority to write executive orders to enforce laws and implement policy.
• These orders may be overturned by the courts if they are determined to violate existing law, or if the Congress votes against them.
• Some people say that the president should be able to change important national policy, like healthcare or immigration, by using the powers of executive order when Congress refuses to cooperate.

Unilateral action 1

• Again, imagine that it's 2021 and the [Democrats/Republicans] have won the presidency, but not the Congress.
• Some people say that the president should do what the people want even if it goes against existing laws.
• The new president wants to carry out rapid change to address the urgent needs of the country.
• Others say that the president should get the agreement first from Congress and the Supreme Court before making major changes.

Presidential term limits

• Now imagine that it's 2021, and the [Democrats/Republicans] have won the presidency, the Senate AND Congress.
• They make a proposal to remove any term limits and allow the president to be reelected more times than the current two-term rule.
• Others say that term limits are needed to make sure no single person gains too much power over the country.
• · Favor presidential term limits · Oppose presidential term limits.

Protest

• Imagine that the [Democrats/Republicans] have won the governorship in your state in the 2020 elections and must decide how to handle growing protests in your state.
• · Governor should NOT be allowed to ban protests · Governor should be allowed to ban protests.

Prosecute journalists

• The [Democrats/Republicans] have won the governorship in your state in the 2020 elections.
• The new governor is pushing the authorities to prosecute a journalist who accused the governor of misconduct without revealing sources.
• · Governor should have the right to prosecute · Governor should NOT have the right to prosecute.

Disqualify candidates

• It's 2021 and the [Democrats/Republicans] have won the presidential election.
• · President should have the right to disqualify candidates · President should NOT have the right to disqualify candidates Ban Religious Clothing The [Democrats/Republicans]have won the governor’s election in your state in the 2020 elections.
• The new governor wants to ban people from wearing anything that expresses religious affiliation in public.
• Yes, governor should have that right No, governor should not have that right.

Disregard Biased Courts

• Imagine that it's 2021 and the [Democrats/Republicans] have won the presidency and the majority in Congress and the newly-elected [Democrats/Republicans] are questioning the impartiality of the courts.
• Some people say that elected officials must obey the courts even when they think that the decisions are politically biased against the president’s party, while others argue that elected officials should not be bound by court decisions they regard as biased.
• · Court rulings should always be obeyed · Some court rulings should be disregarded.

Foreign interference

• Imagine that the [Democrats/Republicans] have just won the 2020 presidential election, but there are many allegations of foreign help to the new president’s campaign.
• Some people say that candidates should be able to use any information about their opponents during the campaign, even if it comes from outside the country and is difficult to verify.
• Others say that the new Congress should pass a law requiring all candidates to report to the FBI any foreign offers of help, such as dirty information on their opponents.

Accept election results

• It's 2021 and the [Democrats/Republicans] have just won a bare majority in Congress, but their opponents claim the election was so influenced by illegitimate campaign contributions and problems with the voter registration lists that the [Democrats/Republicans] didn’t really win a majority.
• Some people say that political candidates should respect election results even if they believe they lost an election due to unfair practices.
• Others say that they should refuse to accept results that they believe are due to unfair practices, even if they can't prove it conclusively.
• · Accept the results · Refuse to accept the results.

Impeachment

• Imagine that it's 2021 and the [Democrats/Republicans] have just won the presidency, but lawsuits have been filed alleging criminal misconduct during the campaign of the new president and a presidential cover up in the first days of the presidency.
• Some people say that the president is serving the country and therefore should be immune from prosecution for any action he/she takes as president.
• Others say that no one is above the law and the president should be investigated in an impeachment inquiry, and removed from office if found guilty.

Figures

Table 1. Bioactive properties of the methanolic extract and infusion of wild Chenopodium ambrosioides.

Table 2. Chemical composition in hydrophilic compounds- sugars and organic acids- of wild Chenopodium ambrosioides.

Figure 1. HPLC phenolic profile of Chenopodium ambrosiodes, obtained at 370 nm (A) and 280 nm (B) for flavonoids and phenolic acids, respectively.

Table 4. Chemical composition in lipophilic compounds of wild Chenopodium ambrosioides.

Table 3. Retention time (Rt), wavelengths of maximum absorption in the UV-vis region (λmax), pseudomolecular and MS2 fragment ions (in brackets, relative abundances), identification and quantification of phenolic compounds in wild C. ambrosiodes.

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What contributions have the authors mentioned in the paper "Bioactivity and chemical characterization in hydrophilic and lipophilic compounds of chenopodium ambrosioides l" ?

In this paper, the authors characterized the chemical composition of C. ambrosioides in hydrophilic ( sugars, organic acids and phenolic compounds ) and lipophilic ( fatty acids and tocopherols ) molecules, as well as some bioactive properties ( antioxidant and antitumour activities, and hepatotoxicity ) of its infusion and methanolic extract. 

Q2. What are the mechanisms of antioxidants in C. ambrosioides?

They act as antioxidants through various mechanisms, including hydrogen donating reactions, metal chelation, and up-regulation or protection of antioxidant defenses (e.g. intracellular glutathione levels) (Pereira et al.,2013). 

Q3. What is the abundant phenolic compound in the plant?

Flavonoids were the major phenolic compounds present in this sample (768 mg/100 g dw), being quercetin (46.98%) and kaempferol derivatives (45.91%) the most abundant. 

Q4. What cell lines were used for the study?

Five human tumour cell lines were used: MCF-7 (breast adenocarcinoma), NCI-H460 (non-small cell lung cancer), HCT-15 (colon carcinoma), HeLa (cervical carcinoma) and HepG2 (hepatocellular carcinoma). 

Q5. What is the prominent PUFA in the Western diet?

Linoleic acid is the most prominent PUFA in the Western diet and previous studies showed health benefits under the prevention of cancer diseases (Whelan, 2008). 

Q6. What is the way to evaluate the antioxidant activity of C. ambrosioides?

Trolox and ellipticine were used as positive controls of antioxidant and antitumour activities evaluation assays, respectively, but comparison with the samples should be avoided, because they are individual compounds and not mixtures. 

Q7. What are the main diseases associated with the production of free radicals?

Relevant diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cirrhosis, heart disease or dementia disorders, as well as aging process have been associated with the uncontrolled production of free radicals (Valko et al., 2007; Halliwell, 2012). 

Q8. What was the purpose of the MS detector?

The MS detector was programmed for recording in two consecutive modes: Enhanced MS (EMS) and enhanced product ion (EPI) analysis. 

Q9. What were the compounds found in the extract?

Among them, five compounds (peaks 1-3, 5 and 9) were p-coumaric acid derivatives identified according to their UV spectra and pseudomolecular ion. 

Q10. What is the abundant p-coumaric acid?

Phenolic acids were 6.58% of the total phenolic compounds in this sample and trans p-coumaric acid was the most abundant one (25.65 mg/100 g dw, peak 9). 

Q11. What was the method used for the analysis?

The analysis was carried out with a DANI model GC 1000 instrument equipped with a split/splitless injector, a flame ionization detector (FID at 260 ºC) and a Macherey– Nagel (Düren, Germany) column (50% cyanopropyl-methyl-50% phenylmethylpolysiloxane, 30 m × 0.32 mm i.d. × 0.25 μm df). 

Q12. What is the m/z of the fragments?

The fragments ions at m/z 447 and 285 would correspond to the respective losses of the pentosyl and hexosyl moieties, respectively. 

Q13. What was the ion pattern of peak 4?

Peak 4 was associated to a feruloyl pentoside acid based on its molecular ion fragmentation pattern similar to peak 1, whereas no precise identity could be established for peak 6.