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Abies Spectabilis (D. Don) G. Don (Syn. A. Webbiana Lindl.) Family: Coniferae
Published in L.D. Kapoor, Handbook of Ayurvedic Medicinal Plants, 2017
Chemical constituents — Flowers contain sugar, cellulose, albuminous substances, ash, and water. Dried flowers contain 50 to 60% sugar; seed contains 50 to 60% of fatty oil, called bassia oil, consisting of olein and palmitin, linolein, and stearin; a bitter principle, probably saponin, albumen, gum, starch, mucilage, and ash. Ash contains silicic, phosphoric, and sulfuric acid, lime, iron, potash, and traces of soda. Juice contains caoutchouc, tannin, starch, calcium oxalate, gum, resins, and formic and acetic acid. Oil is a mixture of 80% of stearin (separated crystals of stearic acid) and 20% of olein. Leaves contain a glucosidic saponin different from that obtained from seeds. Traces of an alkaloid have also been found. Flowers contain a fairly good quality of sugar, enzymes, and yeast and are commercially used for production of fuel alcohol. The fruit contains saccharose and maltose, tannin, and enzymes. It yields 0.03% of an essential oil containing 22.7% of ethyl cinnamate.50,178
A quick and versatile protocol for the 3D visualization of transgene expression across the whole body of larval Drosophila
Published in Journal of Neurogenetics, 2021
Oliver Kobler, Aliće Weiglein, Kathrin Hartung, Yi-chun Chen, Bertram Gerber, Ulrich Thomas
In a recent study we applied the organic solvent-based clearing protocol 3DISCO (Erturk et al., 2012) to visualize the nervous system in the context of the whole body of a third-instar larva (Saumweber et al., 2018). However, this method does not lend itself to routine use because i) the vast majority of larvae turned black during fixation in 4% paraformaldehyde (PFA), suggestive of melanization due to ruptured crystal cells; ii) a 3-day fixation is required; iii) it involves rather toxic agents (tetrahydrofuran, THF; dibenzylether, DBE); iv) fluorescence fades within a few days; and v) only about 1% of the larvae retain full integrity. The procedure that we introduce here overcomes these problems (Figure S1; for a detailed protocol see the Materials and Methods section). As an initial step, a short bleach wash (Manning & Doe, 2017) was found to prevent blackening and allowed for a substantial shortening of the subsequent PFA fixation to a single overnight step at 4 °C, or a 2 h step at room temperature. We furthermore replaced THF and DBE by the less toxic clearing reagent ethyl-3-phenylprop-2-enoate (a.k.a. ethyl cinnamate, ECi) (Klingberg et al., 2017). Following thorough, ethanol-based dehydration, 2 h incubation in ECi at room temperature resulted in satisfactory clearing of the larvae (Figure S1; afterwards, the specimens can be stored using fresh ECi). As quantified for N = 25 runs with ≥30 larvae each, the average percentage of animals that endured the procedure without noticeable bodily damage was 19.84 ± 8,52% (mean ± SD). Among the remaining larvae, there were always several specimens displaying only minor cracks or kinks such that they were still suitable for inspection. Depending on the selected conditions for fixation and post-fixation washes, the entire procedure takes between 1–3 days, with actual handling times of only about 2 h (Figure S1). We next assessed the compatibility of this protocol with imaging of various genetically encoded fluorescent markers. In accordance with our labs' main research interests, we focused on the nervous system and paid particular attention to the visualization and integrity of nerve fibers. Unless mentioned otherwise, these assessments were carried out on a light sheet microscope.