Assessment of in vivo antimalarial activities of some selected medicinal plants from Turkey

Characterization and Comparative Analysis of Chloroplast Genomes of Medicinal Herb Scrophularia ningpoensis and Its Common Adulterants (Scrophulariaceae)

Scrophularia ningpoensis, a perennial medicinal plant from the Scrophulariaceae family, is the original species of Scrophulariae Radix (SR) in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia. This medicine is usually deliberately substituted or accidentally contaminated with other closely related species including S. kakudensis, S. buergeriana, and S. yoshimurae. Given the ambiguous identification of germplasm and complex evolutionary relationships within the genus, the complete chloroplast genomes of the four mentioned Scrophularia species were sequenced and characterized. Comparative genomic studies revealed a high degree of conservation in genomic structure, gene arrangement, and content within the species, with the entire chloroplast genome spanning 153,016-153,631 bp in full length, encoding 132 genes, including 80 protein-coding genes, 4 rRNA genes, 30 tRNA genes, and 18 duplicated genes. We identified 8 highly variable plastid regions and 39-44 SSRs as potential molecular markers for further species identification in the genus. The consistent and robust phylogenetic relationships of S. ningpoensis and its common adulterants were firstly established using a total of 28 plastid genomes from the Scrophulariaceae family. In the monophyletic group, S. kakudensis was determined to be the earliest diverging species, succeeded by S. ningpoensis. Meanwhile, S. yoshimurae and S. buergeriana were clustered together as sister clades. Our research manifestly illustrates the efficacy of plastid genomes in identifying S. ningpoensis and its counterfeits and will also contribute to a deeper understanding of the evolutionary processes within Scrophularia.

Medicinal plants as a fight against murine blood-stage malaria

OBJECTIVE

Malaria is an infectious parasitic disease affecting most of countries worldwide. Due to antimalarial drug resistance, researchers are seeking to find another safe efficient source for treatment of malaria. Since many years ago, medicinal plants were widely used for the treatment of several diseases. In general, most application is done first on experimental animals then human. In this article, medicinal plants as antimalarial agents in experimental animals were reviewed from January 2000 until November 2020.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In this systematic review published articles were reviewed using the electronic databases NCBI, ISI Web of knowledge, ScienceDirect and Saudi digital library to check articles and theses for M.Sc/Ph.D. The name of the medicinal plant with its taxon ID and family, the used Plasmodium species, plant part used and its extract type and the country of harvest were described.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

The reviewed plants belonged to 83 families. Medicinal plants of families Asteraceae, Meliaceae Fabaceae and Lamiaceae are the most abundant for use in laboratory animal antimalarial studies. According to region, published articles from 33 different countries were reviewed. Most of malaria published articles are from Africa especially Nigeria and Ethiopia. Leaves were the most common plant part used for the experimental malaria research. In many regions, research using medicinal plants to eliminate parasites and as a defensive tool is popular.

Chemical Composition of Scrophularia lucida and the Effects on Tumor Invasiveness in Vitro

A detannified methanolic extract of Scrophularia lucida L. attenuated the formation of cancer cell-induced circular chemorepellent induced defects (CCIDs) in the lymph endothelial cell barrier, which resemble entry ports for the intravasating tumor into the vasculature as a prerequisite for lymph node metastasis. Therefore, the composition of this extract was studied in an activity-guided approach. Since no data on the secondary metabolites of this plant were available, first phytochemical data were collected in the course of the fractionation of the extract. The study resulted in the identification of 14 substances, among them very rare iridoids, such as scrovalentinoside or koelzioside, and several flavonoids (e.g., nepitrin and homoplantaginin). One of the latter group, 2″-O-acetyl-homoplantaginin, is a new natural compound. In the most active fraction, the flavonoid hispidulin was identified as major component and the assay of the pure compound confirmed a contribution of hispidulin to the CCID-inhibitory effects of S. lucida. The activity of the two major iridoids in this assay was less compared to hispidulin.

Potential Use of Turkish Medicinal Plants in the Treatment of Various Diseases

Medicinal plants are sources of health-promoting substances, including phytochemicals and phytoalexins that comprise polyphenols, flavonoids, carotenoids, vitamins A, C, E and several other constituents. Many studies have indicated that medicinal plants have been used to treat human diseases for thousands of years owing to their antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. Medicinal plants reduce the oxidative stress in cells and prevent cancer, cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases, neurodegenerative and digestive system disorders. These potential beneficial effects have been attributed to the presence of bioactive compounds that show antioxidant properties by acting as free radical scavengers or metal chelators, reducing the reactions that produce reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS/RNS). Considering the importance of medicinal plants in terms of their beneficial health effects, some of the medicinally important plants grown in Turkey are covered in this review with respect to their antioxidant potential and phytochemical profile.

Cytotoxic activity evaluation of some medicinal plants, selected from Iranian traditional medicine Pharmacopoeia to treat cancer and related disorders

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

By studying the Iranian Traditional Medicine (ITM) Pharmacopoeia, we have collected information about medicinal plants which had been used to manage cancer-like disorders over eight hundred years, from medieval to the early modern era. Exploring the ITM herbal knowledge, the selected species have been subjected to MTT assay for examining their in vitro cyototoxic activity.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Cancer was reviewed through the ITM and some terminologies were acquired. Five ITM Pharmacopoeia in Arabic and Persian languages from 10th to 18th century AD were explored. These Pharmacopoeia contained the ITM plants which were used to cure cancer and cancer-like diseases. The ITM names were matched with the scientific names. Then the medicinal plants were collected, authenticated and were evaluated for cytotoxic activity using MTT assay, against MCF-7, HepG-2, A-549 and HT-29 cell lines. Finally, the apoptosis induction ability of the most cytotoxic medicinal plant was investigated by activated caspase 3 inspection in MCF-7 cell line.

RESULTS

Six species of the evaluated medicinal plants revealed cytotoxic activity. The most cytotoxicity was observed in Tanacetum polycephalum subsp. argyrophyllum (K.Koch) Podlech with IC50 values of 28.3 μg mL(-1), 53.9 μg mL(-1) and 43.3 μg mL(-1) against MCF-7, A-549 and HT-29 cell lines, respectively. Caspase 3 activation was also observed in MCF-7 cells by Tanacetum polycephalum subsp. argyrophyllum. This is the first time that the cytotoxic activity of this species has been reported.

CONCLUSION

In the present study, some reliable references of ITM have been introduced and though many technical difficulties, linguistic problems and some other hindrances were encountered during the study, using traditional medicine texts for medicinal plant selection could be considered as a helpful starting point in the field of cancer drug discovery.