Melothria maderaspatana (Linn) Cogn, a plant drug of Siddha medicine, is an annual monoecious tendril climber, belonging to the family Cucurbitaceae, mostly prevalent in South India. It is commonly called Musumusukkai in Tamil. Preliminary phytochemical screening of the plant revealed the presence of phytochemical constituents such as coumarins, flavonoids. Hence an attempt has been made to screen the effect of Melothria maderaspatana in platelet aggregation.

Licorice herb has been widely used for many centuries in the cure of common illnesses, such as sore throat and dry cough. Recent studies have revealed that the healing properties of licorice components could be effective against a much wider spectrum of diseases, such as chronic hepatitis and HIV infection. However, excessive consumption of this natural agent may produce dangerous side effects, since the substances it contains can interfere with many metabolic pathways. Therefore, caution should be taken when using licorice in a chronic manner, or when larger doses than appropriate are being prescribed.For full article Click Here

Natural products from plants remain at the core of modern medicinal chemistry.For all the biomedical promise of genetic engineering and combinatorial chemistry, the greenhouse, the garden, and the jungle remain key sources of current pharmaceuticals and future drug candidates. Whether directly purified from nature or chemically modified in the lab, these compounds are at the heart of the world pharmacopoeia and the source molecules for directed, knowledge-based medicinal chemistry.

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All rights reserved. The use of and search for drugs and dietary supplements derived from plants have accelerated in recent years. Ethnopharmacologists, botanists, microbiologists, and natural-products chemists are combing the Earth for phytochemicals and "leads" which could be developed for treatment of infectious diseases. While 25 to 50% of current pharmaceuticals are derived from plants, none are used as antimicrobials. Traditional healers have long used plants to prevent or cure infectious conditions; Western medicine is trying to duplicate their successes. Plants are rich in a wide variety of secondary metabolites, such as tannins, terpenoids, alkaloids, and flavonoids, which have been found in vitro to have antimicrobial properties. This review attempts to summarize the current status of botanical screening efforts, as well as in vivo studies of their effectiveness and toxicity. The structure and antimicrobial properties of phytochemicals are also addressed.

Part two of a series about a novel spectrofluorometric method that allows for in vivo observation of division of chloroplast populations in leaves of Arabidopsis thaliana.


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There is no current capacity crunch due to increased investments in new facilities.

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American Chemical Society Resveratrol (3,5,4'-trihydroxy-trans-stilbene; Scheme 1) is a natural product present at concentrations up to 100 M in red wines. It is reported to have antiinflammatory, cardiovascular protective, and cancer chemopreventive properties and was shown to target prostaglandin H2 synthases (COX-1 and COX-2).

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The screening of crude natural product extracts and combinatorial libraries for activities has been a major source of biologically active compounds for drug development efforts. However, whole extract screens can be problematic when multiple, potentially interfering activities or nonspecifically active compounds, such as tannins or leptins, are present. The ability to separate and assess individually such activities without macroscopic isolation represents an extremely useful method for drug discovery.

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The kahalalides are depsipeptides isolated by the Scheuer group from the sacoglossan mollusk Elysia rufescens Pease 1871 (Plakobranchidae) and its green algal diet, a Bryopsis sp. (Bryopsidaceae). Seven cyclic depsipeptides, kahalalides A-F and O, and three linear peptides, kahalalides G, H, and J, ranging from a C₃₁ tripeptide to a C₇₅ tridecapeptide, have been previously described from the mollusk. Kahalalide G, the acyclic analogue of kahalalide F, was found in the diet of the animal. Except for the unusual dehydroaminobutyric acid (Dhb) in kahalalides F and G, all constituent amino acids are of common occurrence. Each peptide also contains an aliphatic acid

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This study investigated the effects of some essential oils o­n Limantria dispar (Lepidoptera: Lymantridae, gypsy moth) larvae, o­ne of the most serious pests of cork oak forests. The essential oils were first formulated as oil in water (o/w) emulsions and used in laboratory bioassays to assess their lethal concentration (LC50). Microcapsules containing the most promising oils (Rosmarinus officinalis and Thymus herba-barona) were then prepared by a phase separation process, followed by freeze-drying. The formulations thus obtained, characterized in terms of essential oil content and composition, morphology, storage stability, and release profile, were tested o­n gypsy moth larvae. The results showed that the tested oils possess interesting larvicidal effects that make them suitable for application in integrated control strategies. The microencapsulation process gave high encapsulation yields (over 98%) with both essential oils, which have different chemical compositions.

Dendrobatid frogs of Central and South America have been a rich source of a wide variety of biologically active alkaloids, comprising over 20 structural classes; code names for the over 500 alkaloids found in frog skins are provided in a recent review. In 1976, a C19 alkaloid of molecular weight 275, which was code-named 275A (1), was found to be a major alkaloid in skin extracts of a red and black-banded dendrobatid frog, Dendrobates lehmanni Myers and Daly, 1976, collected in montane forest near Cali, Colombia. The frog, known previously o­nly from street markets in Cali, had been considered another populational variant of the extremely variable species Dendrobates histrionicus Berthold, 1845.

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