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Medicinal plants

About: Medicinal plants is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3816 publications have been published within this topic receiving 108681 citations. The topic is also known as: medicinal herbs & medicinal plants.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Various Turkish medicinal herbs were investigated for their genotoxic potential in the Salmonella typhimurium microsomal activation assay and the alkaline single cell gel electrophoresis (COMET) assay.
Abstract: Medicinal plants play a major role in the life of Turkish people and of late medicinal plant usage has increased in many countries. Green plants in general contain mutagenic and carcinogenic substances, but there is little information about the biological activities of herbal medicine. In the present study, therefore, various Turkish medicinal herbs were investigated for their genotoxic potential in the Salmonella typhimurium microsomal activation assay and the alkaline single cell gel electrophoresis (COMET) assay. Extracts from these medicinal herbs and some fractions of these extracts were examined. The species investigated were Arctium minus, Ecballium elatterium, Momordica charantia, Plantago major, Urtica dioica, Viscum album, Salvia triloba, Euphorbia rigida, Stachys lavandulifolia, Acteoside, Abies nordmannia. They are used for various immune disorders and are applied either topically or taken orally as a herbal tea. Of the 19 samples of the extracts and fractions investigated, none produced a positive response in strains TA98 and TA100 with or without metabolic activation, but all produced an increase above negative control values in the COMET assay. Some extracts were investigated further and produced dose-related increases. In the case of Urtica and Euphorbia species, where two fractions from these plants were examined, one fraction produced a greater response than the other. It is suggested that the lesser response of the fractions might be due to less DNA strand-breaking agents in the fractions or they may have antigenotoxic properties. The breaks that are detected in the COMET assay could be alkali-labile AP-sites and intermediates in base- or nucleotide-excision repair and are difficult to interpret in terms of hazard for man. Further studies with additional genotoxicity assays would be required to make such a prediction.

63 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: This review presents an overview and details of the phytochemical and pharmacological investigations on the S. aromaticum, one of the most important herbs in traditional medicine, having a wide spectrum of biological activity.
Abstract: Medicinal plants are generating an ever-increasing amount of interest due to the effectiveness, low cost and minimal side-effects associated with drugs derived from them. Clove ( Syzygium aromaticum (L.) (Family Myrtaceae ) is one of the most important herbs in traditional medicine, having a wide spectrum of biological activity. Phytoconstituents of clove comprise of various classes and groups of chemical compounds such as monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes, phenolics and hydrocarbon compounds. The major phytochemicals found in clove oil is mainly eugenol (70-85%) followed by eugenyl acetate (15%) and β-caryophyllene (5–12%). Their derivatives result in biological benefits such as antibacterial, antifungal, insecticidal, antioxidant, anticarcinogenic capacities. In addition to clove oil’s worldwide use as a food flavoring agent, it has also been employed for centuries as a topical analgesic in dentistry. This review presents an overview and details of the phytochemical and pharmacological investigations on the S. aromaticum .

62 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: 110 medicinal plants and their phytochemical constituents that have been shown to possess anti-depressant activity are summarized and mechanistic evaluation of many of these plants still needs to be investigated and explored.

62 citations

01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: An overview of the researches on alternative control of disease in plants in Brazil using natural extracts using medicinal plants and fungal extracts for the plant disease control in the last 10 years is presented.
Abstract: Actually, with the objective to find new technologies, ecologically or environmentally safer, for the control of plant diseases, mainly in organic growth, alternative methods for the control of phytopathogens are been development. This kind of alternative methods are been investigated in our 'Biological and Alternative Control of Plant Diseases' research group. An overview of the our researches using medicinal plants and fungal extracts for the plant disease control in the last 10 years and examples of in vitro and field essays are presented. Plant extracts used to control of the phytopathogens have been obtained mainly from tree species such as eucalyptus and neem (24% of the studies with extracts) and herbaceous species like garlic, citronella, mint, rue, yarrow, ginger, basil, camphor, turmeric and ocimum (54%). Besides these there are other 237 plants from the Brazilian flora whose antimicrobial potential was tested by Brazilian researchers. With respect to groups of pathogens, the majority of the work is with those that cause disease in the plant canopy (30% of the works with extracts), like the genus Alternaria, Bipolaris, Crinipellis, Corynespora and Colletotrichum, which respond alone for 15% of the works. The soil-born pathogens represent 20% of the researches, especially Rhizoctonia, Sclerotium, Sclerotinia, Fusarium and Phytophthora. Post-harvest pathogens like Penicillium, Aspergillus and Rhizopus are in 9% of the works and Meloidogyne nematode in 9.5%. For the host plants, 30% of the work are with crops like beans, soybeans, coffee, wheat, cotton and cassava; 20% with vegetables like cucumber and tomato, this later representing alone 15% of all the researches with extract; and 10% with the fruits like papaya, strawberry and cocoa. Details about these data can be found in the review of Stangarlin and colleagues (11). From these presented numbers we can have an overview of the researches on alternative control of disease in plants in Brazil using natural extracts. Besides that, other researches have been made to identify plants whose extracts have compounds with biological action against phytopathogens or that induce plant resistance. Some of these works are detailed below, focusing mainly the results published of the research group "Biological and Alternative Control of Plant Diseases - COBALFI" (Western Parana State University - UNIOESTE - campus Marechal Cândido Rondon, Brazil).

62 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: In this paper, the synthesis and enhancement of different bioactive compounds by Methyl-Jasmonate (MeJA), Jasmonate(JA), and Salicylic Acid (SA) as elicitors of many medicinal plants in vitro by using different cultures.
Abstract: Secondary metabolites are the bioactive compounds of plants which have no role in the development process but are needed for defense purposes. Their synthesis takes place from the primary metabolism of the plant. Plants are a novel source of bioactive compounds from which different drugs are derived. These bioactive compounds have therapeutic value for which they are used all over the world. As medicinal plants are used for the extraction of different compounds they are exploited and becoming threatened. To overcome this problem and to preserve the resulting loss of biodiversity we can conserve the medicinal plants by propagation and the production of secondary metabolites by different in vitro culture techniques. As we know that intact plant has a low potential for chemical synthesis of bioactive compounds so to enhance the production of secondary metabolites elicitors are used. Elicitors are those molecules which enhance the secondary metabolism of the plant. Elicitors may be biotic or abiotic. The present review deals with the synthesis and enhancement of different bioactive compounds by Methyl-Jasmonate (MeJA), Jasmonate (JA) and Salicylic Acid (SA) as elicitors of many medicinal plants in vitro by using different cultures.

62 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
2023617
20221,438
2021239
2020262
2019227
2018252