A study on traditional medicinal plants of Uthapuram,Madurai District,Tamilnadu, South India

Objective

To record the medicinal plants of Uthapuram Village, Madurai district, Tamilnadu, South India for the first time and the usage of these medicinal plants to remediate the diseases among the peoples.

Methods

Explorative field trips were made to the village for about twelve months from April 2012 to May 2013 to survey the medicinal plants and collect the information from the villagers.

Results

From this study 52 species of valuable medicinal plants belonging to 36 families were recorded and their ethnomedicinal values were collected from the village peoples.

Conclusion

This study focuses the importance, utilization and conservation of the medicinal plants among the people.     

DAO-9 (2,5-di(4-aryloylaryloxymethyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole) exhibits p53 induced apoptogenesis through caspase-3 mediated endonuclease activity in murine carcinoma

One of the main strategies to inhibit the tumor growth is to promote the biochemical events leading to DNA degradation, which would eventually culminate in apoptosis. We have earlier reported that the 2,5-di(4-aryloylaryloxymethyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole(DAO-9) possessed anti-cancer activity. To address the exact molecular mechanism underlying anti-cancer property, present study focused on evaluating the anti-tumor effect of the DAO-9 on murine ascites carcinoma cells using various in vivo and in vitro assays. The in vivo assays implicated a strong regression in tumor growth of ascites carcinoma after treatment which is due to apoptogenic efficacy as assessed through structural morphology of EAC cells by Giemsa, Acridine orange, Annexin V staining and FACS analysis. Nucleosomal DNA fragmentation induced by DAO-9 is due to activation of caspase-3 mediated DNAse as verified by endonuclease assays and immunoblot analysis. The caspase-3 activation mechanism is by induction of intrinsic cascade signaling molecules, such as p53, Bax, Bad and cytochrome c (cyt c) expression as verified by western blot. The results concluded that the tumor inhibiting activity of DAO-9 is due to activation of the apoptotic signaling cascade, which could be translated into targeted anti-cancer drug in the near future.     

Transdermal delivery of venlafaxine hydrochloride: the effects of enhancers on permeation across pig ear skin

Venlafaxine representing a new class of antidepressants is a potent serotonin/ norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. Transdermal delivery of venlafaxine hydrochloride (VHCl) may result in proper patient compliance by reducing the incidence of the undesirable GI problems generally associated with its plural oral dosing. The present study is an attempt to investigate the improvement of the transdermal flux of the hydrophilic VHCl by certain permeation enhancers viz. glycerin, urea, propylene glycol and mixture of propylene glycol and ethanol across pig ear skin. The cumulative drug release was the highest from the formulation F5 consisting of the mixture of propylene glycol and ethanol in sodium alginate gel with a load of 25% w/w VHCl with 96% permeation enhancement. The steady state flux observed with F5 was 0.203 mg cm(-2) hr and an area of 15.27 cm(2) would suffice to arrive at a required therapeutic concentration of VHCl in the blood.     

P53 gene mutation increases progastrin dependent colonic proliferation and colon cancer formation in mice

Transgenic mice overexpressing human progastrin (hGAS) show colonic crypt hyper-proliferation and elevated susceptibility to colon carcinogenesis. We aimed to investigate effects of p53 mutation on colon carcinogenesis in hGAS mice. We show that introducing a p53 gene mutation further increases progastrin dependent BrdU labeling and results in markedly elevated number of aberrant crypt foci (ACF) and colonic tumors. We demonstrate that hGAS/Lgr5-GFP mice have higher number of Lgr5+ colonic stem cells per crypt when compared to Lgr5-GFP mice indicating that progastrin changes crypt biology through increased stem cell numbers and additional p53 mutation leads to more aggressive phenotype in this murine colon cancer model.     

Exploring SAR continuity in the vicinity of activity cliffs

Activity cliffs are formed by structurally similar compounds with significant differences in potency and represent an extreme form of structure-activity relationships discontinuity. By contrast, regions of structure-activity relationships continuity in compound data sets result from the presence of structurally increasingly diverse compounds retaining similar activity. Previous studies have revealed that structure-activity relationships information extracted from large compound data sets is often heterogeneous in nature containing both continuous and discontinuous structure-activity relationships components. Structure-activity relationships discontinuity and continuity are often represented by different compound series, independent of each other. Here, we have searched different compound data sets for the presence of structure-activity relationships continuity within the vicinity of prominent activity cliffs. For this purpose, we have designed and implemented a computational approach utilizing particle swarm optimization to examine the structural neighborhood of activity cliffs for continuous structure-activity relationships components. Structure-activity relationships continuity in the structural neighborhood of activity cliffs was relatively rarely observed. However, in a number of cases, notable structure-activity relationships continuity was detected in the vicinity of prominent activity cliffs. Exemplary local structure-activity relationships environments displaying these characteristics were analyzed in detail. Thus, the structure-activity relationships environment of activity cliffs must not necessarily be discontinuous in nature, and local structure-activity relationships continuity and discontinuity can occur in a concerted manner in series of structurally related compounds.     

Phosphatidylglycerol suppresses influenza A virus infection

Influenza A virus (IAV) is a worldwide public health problem causing 500,000 deaths each year. Palmitoyl-oleoyl-phosphatidylglycerol (POPG) is a minor component of pulmonary surfactant, which has recently been reported to exert potent regulatory functions upon the innate immune system. In this article, we demonstrate that POPG acts as a strong antiviral agent against IAV. POPG markedly attenuated IL-8 production and cell death induced by IAV in cultured human bronchial epithelial cells. The lipid also suppressed viral attachment to the plasma membrane and subsequent replication in Madin-Darby canine kidney cells. Two virus strains, H1N1-PR8-IAV and H3N2-IAV, bind to POPG with high affinity, but exhibit only low-affinity interactions with the structurally related lipid, palmitoyl-oleoyl-phosphatidylcholine. Intranasal inoculation of H1N1-PR8-IAV in mice, in the presence of POPG, markedly suppressed the development of inflammatory cell infiltrates, the induction of IFN-γ recovered in bronchoalveolar lavage, and viral titers recovered from the lungs after 5 days of infection. These findings identify supplementary POPG as a potentially important new approach for treatment of IAV infections.