Snezana B. Tosic

Five representatives of the Serbian flora: Artemisia alba Turra, Artemisia annua L., Artemisia absinthium L., Artemisia vulgaris L. and Artemisia scoparia Waldst. & Kit. were collected, dried, subjected to the acid digestion procedure and twenty macro and micro elements were quantified by ICP OES. Principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (AHC) were used to determine whether there is the distinction in metal accumulation among studied Artemisia species as well as is there correlation between the element content and soil type of habitats. AHC analysis gave well-separated clusters. The pairs of samples of the same species were in the same subclusters except A. alba for which each of the samples belongs to a separate subcluster at the similarity level of 20. Three plant species examined were in three clusters, A. absinthium samples were clustered with one A. alba sample, while the second one was in a separate cluster. The results obtained by PCA are compatible with the results of the AHC analysis and support them completely. The elemental profiles based on the concentrations of 20 analyzed elements were primarily associated with plant species, whereas the influence of soil type was less pronounced and was most clearly reflected in samples collected from Chromic Cambisol, characterized mainly by Cr, Al, Fe, Co, Ni, Be, and Mn.

Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis L.) is a well-established medicinal plant prized for its rich content of bioactive compounds. This study explored how artificial cadmium (Cd) contamination of soil affects the accumulation of heavy metal(oid)s, antioxidant activity, and the concentration of rosmarinic acid in lemon balm. At a soil Cd level of 20 mg/kg, plant growth was reduced, while the concentrations of most other elements, antioxidant activity, total phenolics, and flavonoids decreased, and the rosmarinic acid content increased slightly. In contrast, lower Cd levels (5 and 10 mg/kg) led to a modest increase in antioxidant activity and phenolic content. Cadmium accumulation in the aerial parts exceeded the WHO limit for medicinal plants. Although minor improvements in antioxidant properties were observed at lower Cd levels, and rosmarinic acid increased at 20 mg/kg, the health risks associated with Cd accumulation remain a concern. Therefore, monitoring Cd content in lemon balm grown on contaminated soils is essential to ensure its safe medicinal use.

Pesticides commonly used in the Republic of Serbia (tebuconazole, pendimethalin, pyraclostrobin, propiconazole and famoxadone) have high stability, so their potential toxicity to humans needs to be investigated. These pesticides are in use in the Republic of Serbia in various formulations. Their toxicity and interactions with acetylcholinesterase were thoroughly investigated in this study using computational tools. The ADMET (adsorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, toxicity) study showed that all of them are efficient oral compounds, and that pendimethalin was a mutagenic compound. Glide scores ranged from ?18.41 (pendimethalin) to ?27.61 kJ mol-1 (famoxadone) in Mus musculus, and from ?19.58 (pendimethalin) to ?24.31 kJ mol-1 (propiconazole) in Homo sapiens. In addition, the experimental stability of the pesticides solutions in methanol was studied using the fast gas chromatography?mass spectrometry (GC?MS, retention times of the studied pesticides ranged from 14.47 (pendimethalin) to 22 min (famoxadone)). They showed good stability over time, apart from pyraclostrobin which decomposed mainly into its desmethoxy derivative after 20 months. Based on the promising modelling results, pyraclostrobin and famoxadone emerge as potential candidates for further investigation in the treatment of Alzheimer?s disease, taking care to increase their stability.

Selected varieties of strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries grown in Serbia have been analyzed, and their polyphenolic profile was determined by HPLC analysis. The occurrence of phenolic acids, flavonols, and anthocyanins has been examined. Caffeic, p-coumaric, ferulic, and ellagic acid were identified and quantified. Six flavonols have been identified in berry samples: quercetin, quercetin-glucoside, quercetin-galactoside, kaempferol, kaempferol-glucoside, and rutin. The following anthocyanins were found in strawberries: pelargonidin-glucoside, pelargonidin-rutinoside, cyanidin-glucoside, and cyanidin-malonylglucoside. Cyanidin-glucoside, cyanidin-rutinoside, and cyanidin-malonylglucoside were found in blackberry samples. The following anthocyanins were found in blueberries: delphinidin-galactoside, delphinidin-glucoside, delphinidin-arabinoside, cyanidin-galactoside, cyanidin-glucoside, cyanidin-arabinoside, petunidin-arabinoside, petunidin-galactoside, peonidin-galactoside, and malvidin-galactoside. Statistical multivariate method – principal component analysis (PCA) was used to classify phenolic acids, flavonols, and anthocyanins according to their contents in berry samples. Cluster analysis (CA) was used to classify samples based on the individual polyphenolics content.

The five agricultural soil preparation methods for the purpose of determining the pseudo-total content of 20 elements (Al, As, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Hg, K, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, Ni, P, Pb, S, Si and Zn) in 4 soil samples taken from different plots of soils in the vicinity of Vranje (Southern Serbia) was applied in this paper. The following methods were used: digestion with aqua regia and hydrogen-peroxide with heating at temperature 190 °C, digestion with aqua regia and hydrogen-peroxide in combination with ultrasound with heating at temperature 95 °C, digestion with reverse aqua regia and hydrogen-peroxide with heating at temperature 190 °C, and digestion with nitric acid and hydrogen-peroxide under reflux with heating at temperature 95 °C, and digestion with perchloric acid with heating at temperature 190 °C. The results were statistically processed using an ANOVA test. The results obtained by this study show that the amount of extracted elements from the soil is influenced by several different factors including the following: soil type, soil content and chemical form of the elements.

Plant parts of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.): root, stem, leaf, and seed, as well as the soil on which this plant culture was grown were analyzed for the content of As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn using Optical emission spectrometry with inductively coupled plasma (ICP-OES). The samples were prepared by wet digestion. To assess the degree of bioaccumulation in plant parts and the translocation of the examined elements from the roots to the above-ground plant parts, the Biological Concentration Factor (BCF), Mobility Ratio (MR), and Translocation Factor (TF) were calculated. BCF and MR values are less than 1 for all elements while TF (leaf/root) values for As, Cd, Cu, Fe, and Mn and TF (stem/root) values for Cu are higher than 1.

The objective of this research was to develop a kinetic-spectrophotometric method for the determination of microquantities of L-histidine in pure form and dietary supplements. The method was based on the kinetics of ampicillin degradation by Ni(II) ion as a catalyst in the presence of L-histidine in a strongly alkaline medium. The rate of this reaction was monitored spectrophotometrically by measuring the increase in absorbance at 265 nm as a function of time. The same approach was used for the investigation of the reaction rate in the absence of histidine. A differential variant of the tangent method was used to process the kinetic data. Beer?s law was obeyed in the interval of histidine concentration from 1.24 ?g/ml to 11.63 ?g/ml with the relative standard deviation ranging from 8.1% to 0.7%. The detection limit of 0.46 ?g/ml was estimated based on the 3S0 criterion. The interference effects of some metal ions, anions, and other molecules on the reaction rate were studied to assess method selectivity. Herein described method was applied for the quantification of histidine in dietary supplements. The point hypothesis test confirmed that there was no significant difference between the proposed and the reference method.