Phytochemical composition and biological activity of extracts from Lebanese medicinal plants

The Mediterranean area especially the eastern part including Lebanon, is rich in term of plant biodiversity, including high valuable medicinal plants that are largely used by people as herbal medicine, these plants represent an important source of plant-derived bioactive compounds, besides, there is a need to characterize these compounds, evaluate their bioactivity and clarify scientifically the use of these plant as traditional and alternative medicine, lack of these information may limit their use, by contrast, studying the compositions and bioactivity of these plants may improve their use, discovery of new natural bioactive compounds and finally formulate new plant-based nutraceutical and therapeutically agents. In this context, the aim of my PhD thesis, and as a part of our ongoing program in the medicinal plants filed, was the characterization of a pool of phytochemical compounds with a special focus on polyphenols isolated from different medicinal plants from the Lebanese flora, using analytical tools (as described later in the chapters) including high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with different detectors such as UV-visible and electrospray ioniziation (ESI) Mass spectrometry (MS), following by the study of their biological activities using different in vitro cellular well-established model for several chronic diseases. The plants that I choose for my study have a significant value in the traditional medicine in Lebanon, where they are employed as a food but also in folk medicine to treat/prevent many illnesses. I employed different cellular models of oxidative stress and related chronic diseases (NAFLD, inflammation and cancer).