ERIC Number: EJ1173150
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-Mar
Pages: 4
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0021-9584
EISSN: N/A
Synthesizing a Berberine Derivative and Evaluating Antimicrobial Activity to Reinforce with Students the Potential Significance of Small Chemical Structure Changes for Biological Systems
Rodrigues, Catarina A. B.; Neto, Iris; Rijo, Patricia; Afonso, Carlos A. M.
Journal of Chemical Education, v95 n3 p492-495 Mar 2018
The convenient synthesis of dihydroberberine by the reduction of berberine is described as an experiment for an upper-division undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory course. Students obtained up to 74% yield of the desired pure product without the use of chromatographic techniques. The antimicrobial activities of both compounds against "Staphylococcus aureus" and "Candida albicans" were then assessed and compared in an upper-division undergraduate microbiology laboratory course. The students verified that berberine shows higher antimicrobial activity than its derivative dihydroberberine, demonstrating that small changes in a chemical structure can result in great biological differences.
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Chemistry, College Science, Undergraduate Study, Science Laboratories, Microbiology, Science Experiments, Laboratory Experiments, Scientific Concepts
Division of Chemical Education, Inc and ACS Publications Division of the American Chemical Society. 1155 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. Tel: 800-227-5558; Tel: 202-872-4600; e-mail: eic@jce.acs.org; Web site: http://pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A