ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY OF CYCLOHEXADIENES. The 1,4 and 1,3 cyclohexadiene moiety is a structural motive in many natural terpene derivatives which have been attributed promising health promoting activities, but their radical chemistry in relation to lipid peroxidation in membranes is almost unexplored. Recently, in collaboration with prof. Christian Bergamini's group, we reported the promising antiferroptitic activity of gamma-terpinene on neuronal cells. Studies are ongoing to clarify possible neuroprotective activity. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202403320
OXIDATION OF BIO-OILS. Used cooking oils, waste oils from mill effluents and oils from non-food crops are of great importance for sustainable fuel production for "hard-to abate" sectors (i.e. aviation). Because of their complex composition, their oxidation is unpredictable and difficult to control. We have devised a simple but powerful method based on oximetry to study oxidation of "difficult" oils. The effect of natural and synthetic antioxidants is investigated in the presence of typical contaminants of recycled oils (i.e. free acids, oxidation products).
NOVEL METHODS FOR ANTIOXIDANT STUDY. Measuring the activity of antioxidants is of fundamental importance in food, pharmaceutical and petrochemical industry. Unfortunately, oversimplified methods are often employed (dpph, ABTS, etc), leading to unclear or misleading results that hamper scientific progress in this field. Inhibited autoxidation methods are the gold standard but require long reaction time and expensive reagents. We develop new methods based on the peroxidation of readily available natural compounds (sunflower oil, squalene, terpenes), focusing the attention of the generation of different radical species (alkyl- and hydro- peroxyl radicals) that reproduce real systems. We also test novel techniques based on oximetry, fluorescence methods, high throughput 96-well microplates, confocal microscope.
ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY OF NANOMATERIALS. Biological activity of many redox-active nanomaterials of great current interest (metal oxides, melanins, etc) is correlated to their ability to trap free radicals and to show antioxidant activity. However, the chemical mechanism underlying their activity is far from being clarified, leading to inefficient development of novel materials. We have found that peroxidation studies with oximetry detection is ideal for studying nano or micro-sized materials. We applied successfully this technique for CeO2, allomelanin, polydopamine, iron oxide, silica nanoparticles in collaborative studies.
METHODS: organic synthesis, NMR, LC-MS, GC-MS, kinetic studies by oximetry and UV-vis spectroscopy, study of the oxidation of fluorescent probes, theoretical calculations.
