China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
The Potential of Plants as Treatments for Venous Thromboembolism
Published in Namrita Lall, Medicinal Plants for Cosmetics, Health and Diseases, 2022
Lilitha L. Denga, Namrita Lall
Several studies have revealed that plant extracts can inhibit thrombin. White mangrove (Laguncularia racemose [L.] C. F. Gaertn.) is a plant traditionally used for healing sores and fever (Bandaranayake 1998). A study found that glycosylated flavonoids isolated from methanolic extracts of L. racemosa inhibited human thrombin activity (Rodrigues et al. 2015). Garden nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus L) is a plant that is traditionally used to treat cardiovascular and renal diseases (Gasparotto et al. 2011). In a study on medicinal plants from the Azores, the methylene chloride extract of garden nasturtium inhibited the activity of thrombin by 98% (Manuel et al. 2000). In another study, the methylene chloride extract of Capsella bursa-pastoris (L.) Medik (shepherd’s purse), a plant traditionally used to improve blood flow, presented antithrombin activity by 87% (Goun et al. 2002).
The late Middle Ages
Published in Michael J. O’Dowd, The History of Medications for Women, 2020
Shepherd’s purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris, also known as Thlaspi bursa-pastoris, witches pouches or, pickpocket.) is so-called because its seed-bearing pouches resemble a leather purse. The heart-shaped seed pods give rise to the alternative common name, ‘mother’s hearts’ (Ody, 1993). Shepherd’s purse is a persistent and common weed of fields, gardens and waste-ground, and has been used as a food product for thousands of years. Found all over the world, except in tropical areas, the plant was carried to America by the Pilgrim Fathers.
Differential gene expression in chronically irradiated herbaceous species from the Chernobyl exclusion zone
Published in International Journal of Radiation Biology, 2023
Ekaterina M. Shesterikova, Vladimir S. Bondarenko, Polina Yu. Volkova
All molecular and biochemical processes in a plant cell are directly or indirectly related to intracellular signal transduction systems including reactive oxygen species (ROS) as important second messengers (Suzuki et al. 2012). Chronic radiation exposure can cause excessive production of exo- and endogenous ROS (Volkova et al. 2017; Xu et al. 2017), which leads to modulation of the redox balance, intracellular signaling, and, ultimately, metabolic changes. The important role of ROS modulation, abscisic acid (ABA) signaling and synthesis of histones and chaperones in the adaptive reactions to chronic irradiation was demonstrated for Pinus sylvestris L. (Duarte et al. 2019) and Capsella bursa-pastoris L. (Volkova et al. 2021) species. The versatility of such conclusions must be proved in studies of different plant species growing in radioactively contaminated areas. However, there are apparent difficulties for gene expression analyses of chronically irradiated plants in the field conditions, which are related to the limited access of researchers to radioactively contaminated areas, confounding environmental factors and to the lack of genomic and transcriptomic information for non-model plants.
Performance of ImproGene cfDNA blood collection tubes for mutation analysis in cancer patients
Published in Scandinavian Journal of Clinical and Laboratory Investigation, 2022
Shu Zhang, Dongyao Zhou, Siyun Li, Yingming Bai, Bo Huang, Jianhong Han, Mingfei Xu, Sina Wang, Guanhua Deng
For samples in ImproGene tubes stored for 7 days, the exogenous gene fragments were added after blood collection. The exogenous gene was prepared by PCR amplification (primer: (F) 5′-TCAGAAAGGTTGTGTAGGATTGT-3′ and (R) 5′- GTTGGATTCCTCGGAGTGACA-3′) from chemically synthesized gene sequence of Capsella bursa-pastoris (GeneBank: KM673116.1). 1 μL exogenous gene solution was added into 2 mL blood with no fixed concentration and two batches of exogenous gene solution were used in this study. cfDNA was extracted at days 0, 3 and 7 using centrifugal column type cfDNA extraction kit (Life Feng, China) from 200 μL plasma with an elution volume of 20 μL and quantified using QubitTM fluorometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA). The quantification of β-actin, LINE1 and exogenous gene was performed by PowerUpTM SYBRTM Green Master Mix and Applied BiosystemsTM 7500 Real-Time PCR System (Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA). The primer sequences for qPCR were as follows. β-actin: (F) 5′-ACGGCCAGGTCATCACCAT-3′ and (R) 5′-AAGGCTGGAAGAGTGCCTCAG-3′. LINE1: (F) 5′-TCACTCAAAGCCGCTCAACTAC-3′ and (R) 5′- TCTGCCTTCATTTCGTTATGTACC-3′. Exogenous gene: (F) 5′-GATCTTCAACCAGGAGATCA-3′ and (R) 5′-AGTGACAGTGAGGACAATC-3′.
Stress memory in two generations of Plantago major from radioactive and chemical contaminated areas after the cessation of exposure
Published in International Journal of Radiation Biology, 2023
Nadezhda S. Shimalina, Vera N. Pozolotina, Natalya A. Orekhova
Analysis of survival rates of F1 seed progeny from the radioactive contaminated zone showed no significant differences from the background samples. A similar result was obtained in our previous work (Shimalina et al. 2018). A study of the temporal dynamics of seed germination in populations of Pinus sylvestris from the zone contaminated as a result of the Chernobyl accident also showed no effect of chronic irradiation on seed viability (Geras’kin et al. 2017). The absence of differences is caused by the relatively low dose rate on the test sites. The current research showed that progeny from the most contaminated EURT site had the greatest root length in all generations studied. According to the concept of hormesis, low doses of radiation can stimulate plant growth, accelerate development and improve stress tolerance (Volkova et al. 2022). For example, enhanced plant growth was found in Triticum aestivum after chronic irradiation for three weeks at dose rates 66.6–100 mGy h−1 (Hong et al. 2018). In Taraxacum officinale and Capsella bursa-pastoris from the Chernobyl exclusion zone (dose rates 3.5–8.0 μGy h−1) the stimulation of photosynthesis was found (Volkova et al. 2021). In our previous studies, both suppression and stimulation of root growth were noted in the seed progeny of P. major from the EURT area (Pozolotina et al. 2016; Shimalina et al. 2018). Low doses of radiation are a range of uncertainty in which oppositely directed groups of biological effects can occur, from stimulation of vital processes (hormesis) to a visible damage in hypersensitivity (Mothersill and Seymour 2022). The low-dose range is regarded as a region of stochastic effects in which the dose-effect relationship differs from the linear characteristic of high doses (Esnault et al. 2010; Gudkov et al. 2019).