The relative proportions of free amino acids as well as the amino acid compositions of hydrolysed unprecipitated peptides and hydrolysed whole carcasses were quantified for two aphid species: the gall-dwelling social aphid Pemphigus spyrothecae and the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum. The whole-tissue amino acid profiles of the two taxonomically distant species had a surprisingly high level of correspondence. In contrast, when comparing the A. pisum profiles obtained in the current study to those obtained in an earlier study, major differences were identified. It is concluded that there are good prospects for developing an artificial diet for P. spyrothecae. There may also exist considerable scope for tailoring the existing diets of A. pisum to suit specialised populations which develop poorly on the standard diet. The amino acid profile of P. spyrothecae is the first such profile that has been reported for a gall-forming aphid.
An evaluation of possible interactions with enzymes of drug metabolism (cytochromes P450, CYP) is an important part of studies on safety and, in general, on the properties of any drug or biologically active compound. The article is focused on the preliminary metabolic study of selected 2,6,9-trisubstituted purine kinase inhibitors with significant anticancer activities which we have developed. The compounds BP-21 and BP-117 represent strong CDK inhibitors and the compound BPA-302 was developed as selective FLT3-ITD kinase inhibitor. Here, emphasis is placed on interactions of these compounds with the nine most important forms of CYP to evaluate the possibility of inhibition of these enzymes. The possibility of their inhibitory effect was studied in vitro on selected human liver microsomal CYP enzymes. The most affected enzyme was CYP2C19. Its activity dropped to 22 % of its original value by BPA-302, to 13 % by BP-21 and to 6 % by BP-117 at the highest concentration tested (250 µmol·l-1 ). The results suggest that the metabolism of concomitantly administered drugs should not be significantly affected at lower doses. Molecular docking of BPA-302 indicated that it can bind to active site of both CYP2C19 and CYP2D6 enzymes above the heme cofactor corroborating the experimental data.