The Isorhamnetin-Containing Fraction of Philippine Honey Produced by the Stingless Bee Tetragonula biroi Is an Antibiotic against Multidrug-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Honey exhibits antibacterial and antioxidant activities that are ascribed to its diverse secondary metabolites. In the Philippines, the antibacterial and antioxidant activities, as well as the bioactive metabolite contents of the honey, have not been thoroughly described. In this report, we investigated the in vitro antibacterial and antioxidant activities of honey from Apis mellifera and Tetragonula biroi, identified the compound responsible for the antibacterial activity, and compared the observed bioactivities and metabolite profiles to that of Manuka honey, which is recognized for its antibacterial and antioxidant properties. The secondary metabolite contents of honey were extracted using a nonionic polymeric resin followed by antibacterial and antioxidant assays, and then spectroscopic analyses of the phenolic and flavonoid contents. Results showed that honey extracts produced by T. biroi exhibits antibiotic activity against Staphylococcal pathogens as well as high antioxidant activity, which are correlated to its high flavonoid and phenolic content as compared to honey produced by A. mellifera. The bioassay-guided fractionation paired with Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (LCMS) and tandem MS analyses found the presence of the flavonoid isorhamnetin (3-methylquercetin) in T. biroi honey extract, which was demonstrated as one of the compounds with inhibitory activity against multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus ATCC BAA-44. Our findings suggest that Philippine honey produced by T. biroi is a potential nutraceutical that possesses antibiotic and antioxidant activities.     

Shape recovery for sparse‐data tomography

A two‐dimensional sparse‐data tomographic problem is studied. The target is assumed to be a homogeneous object bounded by a smooth curve. A nonuniform rational basis splines (NURBS) curve is used as a computational representation of the boundary. This approach conveniently provides the result in a format readily compatible with computer‐aided design software. However, the linear tomography task becomes a nonlinear inverse problem because of the NURBS‐based parameterization. Therefore, Bayesian inversion with Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling is used for calculating an estimate of the NURBS control points. The reconstruction method is tested with both simulated data and measured X‐ray projection data. The proposed method recovers the shape and the attenuation coefficient significantly better than the baseline algorithm (optimally thresholded total variation regularization), but at the cost of heavier computation.     

Acetanilide palladacycle: an efficient catalyst for room‐temperature Suzuki–Miyaura cross‐coupling reaction

The catalytic activity of three acetanilide palladacycles derived from easily accessible and commercially available acetanilide derivatives, viz. N‐phenylacetamide ( L1 ), N‐(4‐chlorophenyl)acetamide ( L2 ) and N‐(4‐methylphenyl)acetamide ( L3 ) has been examined in Pd‐catalyzed Suzuki–Miyaura reaction of arylboronic acid with aryl bromides at room temperature. The complex 1L3 exhibited efficient activity in the Suzuki–Miyaura reaction (up to 99% isolated yield) under mild reaction conditions. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.