Journal of Medicinal Plants
Volume:16 Issue: 64, 2018

Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) is an alternative to liquid extraction using solvents. Supercritical fluids can have solvating powers similar to organic solvents, but with higher diffusivities, lower viscosity, and lower surface tension. Carbon dioxide is the most commonly used supercritical fluid owing to its nontoxic, nonflammable, inexpensive, environmental friendly properties and mild critical conditions (Tc = 31.1 C and Pc = 73.8 bar). Due to the low heat of process and the relatively unreactive solvent used in the extraction, the fragrant compounds derived often closely resemble the original characteristics of the raw material. Like solvent extraction, extracts a wide range of compounds and leaves the aromatics unaltered by heat, rendering an essence more faithful to the original. In this review, some aspects of this etraction methods have been discussed.

In Iranian traditional medicine, turmeric is known as Auruk-e-Sufr. This spice is obtained from the root of Curcuma longa L which is a member of ginger family. The present study aimed at introducing turmeric and its active constituent Curcumin, and investigating the effectiveness of its therapeutic applications especially in dermal wound healing process based on traditional and conventional medicine resources. In the view of traditional medicine, turmeric has antibacterial effects and was used to strengthen the eyes, alleviate liver obstruction and jaundice and improve edema. In modern medicine, the most important reason of using this herb to prevent or slow the progression of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, pulmonary and autoimmune diseases, as well as inflammatory bowel disease is attributed to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. Skin regeneration and wound healing is a complex process which includes many cells as well as various processes such as proliferation, cell migration, matrix synthesis and contraction that ultimately leads to recovery of cellular structures and tissue layers. There are many recommendations in traditional medicine that suggest the use of turmeric as an antiseptic therapeutic agent is beneficial in treating the skin injuries and healing of wounds, as well as improving rash, and scabies. Based on the results of the studies reviewed in this paper, due to anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antioxidant and angiogenesis activities of curcumin and turmeric, they can accelerate wound healing and improve scars regardless of the type of the wound or the route of the administration of the agent. Also, one of the main effects of this plant on accelerating wound healing is due to its ability to regulation TGF-β1 signaling pathway.

Application of bio-stimulants is one of solutions to quantitative and qualitative changes in metabolites of medicinal plants sprouts.
The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of chitosan bio-stimulation on trigonelline content of sprout under water stress.
This study was conducted in three separate factorial experiments (three times of 4, 8 and 12 days after planting) based on completely randomized design with 15 treatment in 3 replications. The treatments were chitosan in five levels (0, 0.05%, 0.1%, 0.2% and 0.4%) and water stress in 3 levels (control without stress treatment, -0.2 and 0.4 Mpa).
The result of variance analysis showed that chitosan, under stress and interaction effect of chitosan and water stress had significant effect on trigonelline content of 4, 8 and 12-day sprout. The trigonelline content decreased during the experiment in a way that the highest content of that was observed at the first days of seed germination.
By induction of water stress and application of chitosan with optimum amount (to 0.2%) decrease in trigonelline content attained to the lowest trend during the experiment.

The ethnobotanical science to study how the people of a race, culture or specific area use the native plants of that region. Since the methods and the indications of medicinal plants in the different regions are various.
The present study was conducted with the purpose of introducing the traditional application of medicinal plants of Behbahan City for curing the diseases.
For this purpose, after gathering the native plants of region simultaneously, the local name, medicinal properties, How to use and the other information related to the species were gathered.
In this study, 60 plant species belong to 23 families were identified. The Lamiaceae, Apiaceae, Asteraceae, Poaceae and Solanaceae families respectively with having 7, 7, 6, 5 and 4 species had the most number of plants species. By examining the types of plants used as Sodden consumption was found that most (45%) and then the tail and Crude (30 percent).
Existence of 60 medicinal plant species in Behbahan City shows that the city is reach in terms of having access to medicinal plants; and this matter can provide suitable field for better usage of medicinal plants of this city for producing the productions with more effectiveness and less disadvantages.

Thyme (Thymus vulgaris L.) is a valuable medicinal plant which has many secondary metabolites such as thymol and carvacrol.
This study was done to evaluation of cold stress effect on gene expression in thymol biosynthesis pathway including DXR¡ HMGR and TPS1.
The effect of cold stress in the time period of 0, 3, 12, 24 and 48 hours on gene expression in thymol biosynthesis pathway including DXR, HMGR and TPS1 was evaluated by RT-PCR. This study was done on base of complete randomized design (CRD) in Institute of Medicinal Plants, ACECR, Karaj, Iran.
Results showed that the cold stress had significantly effect on expression of studied genes. The highest expression of HMGR gene was observed within 3 hours after cold treatment (1.57 times more than control treatment). The expression of DXR and TPS1 genes were reduced in different periods of cold stress.
In general, the genes expression of thymol and carvacrol biosynthesis pathway including DXR, HMGR and TPS1 were significantly changed by cold stress.

The potential effect of exercise training with supplementation in improving fat metabolism and complications of lipid disorders is an interesting subject.
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of high intensity interval training and flax seed oil supplementation on liver and intestine ABCA1, SR-BI, ABCG1, LXR gene expression, as well as the concentration of HDL, LCAT and plasma lipids in male rats.
Forty adult Wistar rats were randomly divided into eight groups (n=5) including control-saline, training-saline, control-flaxseed oil (With 3 doses), and training-flaxseed oil. The training groups were given high-intensity interval training (10 weeks, five sessions in week) on a rodent treadmill at 90–95% of VO2max and supplement groups also received flaxseed oil with three different doses (10, 20 and 30 mg/kg per cage). Then rats were sacrificed and samples were collected.
The results showed that the training created a significant increase (P Long-term consumption of even unsaturated oils may have adverse effects on the cardiovascular system, but high intensity interval training can bring health benefits by increasing the expression of genes involved in reverse cholesterol transport.

Angiography is one of the most important diagnostic procedures of heart patients is that despite many advantages in the detection of coronary artery disease , has caused many problems for patients. To prevent these complications, the patient is recommended bed rest. Followed this situation, back pain occurred and low back pain is common among these patients.
This study aims to assess the effect of topical herbal ointment on back pain in angiography patients.
This study was a two groups randomized clinical trial, in which patients underwent coronary angiography were selected with available sampling and randomly divided into two groups (taking herbal ointment) and control (placebo) and on angiography day and one day later treated with herbal ointment (4 times a day) and before taking the ointment, and at the end of the second day, pain was measured by VAS scale.
In this study assessed 80 patients that received angiography. The mean pain score in the test group prior to the intervention was 4/05 with a standard deviation 2/24 and after intervention was 2/47 with standard deviation 1/66. pain score in the control group prior to the intervention was 3/52 with a standard deviation 1/93 and after intervention was 3/45 with standard deviation 1/82.
With regard the results of this study we can conclude that this herbal ointment (pepper, rosemary, peppermint) can reduce low back pain in patients after angiography and we can use this ointment to increase patient comfort although more research with more samples is needed in this area to achieve a certain result.

Among the secondary metabolites isolated from Allium species, steroidal saponins are more important for their cytotoxic activities on a variety of cancer cell lines. Current study has investigated the cytotoxic activity of saponin-riched butanolic fraction of Allium affine, an important edible Allium species of Iran.
This study was conducted to evaluate cytotoxic activity of saponin-riched fraction of Allium affine Ledeb on breast and ovarian cancer cell lines.
Bulbs of the plant were extracted respectively by hexane, chloroform, chloroform-methanol (9-1) and methanol in a stepwise method with increasing solvent polarity. The methanol extract was then partitioned between water and butanol and the final dried butanolic fraction was used for further cytotoxicity assay. MCF-7, MDA-MB231 and OVCAR-3 cell lines were tested for cytotoxic activity, using different concentrations of butanolic fraction (0.1-200 µg/ml) by MTT assay. After the incubation time (48 h), the percentage of the viable cells was determined by ELISA reader instrument in 570 nm.
All of the cell lines tested in this investigation exhibited a dose-dependent decrease in succinate dehydrogenase activity against the control and significant dose-dependent inhibition of the growth in all concentrations and cell lines were observed (P The butanolic fraction of A. affine exhibited a significant cytotoxic activity on investigated cell lines, especially OVCAR-3, which is in agreement with other studies conducted on different Allium species. According to the results, it seems that the butanolic fraction of this plant contains cytotoxic components, especially steroidal saponins, and the phytochemical study of the constituents is suggested.

Ocimum basilicum L. belongs to the Lamiaceae family. Its essential oil is anti-bacterial and anti-fungi it is used an appetizer and counterfeit. Methanol spraying as a source of providing carbon for C3 plant, can increase the plant yield, and its rate of ripping it can decrease the effect of water stress.
The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of foliar application of methanol and nano-iron chelated fertilizer on phytochemical and morph physiological characteristics of basil.
In this research, the factorial experiment in a randomized complete blocks design with 20 treatments and 3 replications was carried out. The treatments of this experiment were consisted of five levels of Methanol (0, 10, 20, 30, and 40 %) and four levels of Nano-iron chelate (0, 0.5, 1, 1.5 g/L) fertilizer.
The study showed that spraying methanol with 20% volume along with 1 g/L of nano-iron chelated increased dry matter and oil yield and also increased methyl-cahvicol and Caryophyllene in Basil. Results showed that activity of Glutathione peroxidase enzyme was increased with increasing the percentage of bio simulative methanol, while activity of polyphenol oxidase was decreased.
Nano-iron chelated increased the activity of these enzymes. It can be concluded that higher densities of bio-simulative methanol and Nano-iron chelated increased essential oil, methyl-cahvicol and some other affective enzymes which decrease induced environmental stresses. Although, higher densities of them would decrease biosynthesis of neral and neryl formate.

During the last decade research have been focussed on developing simple, clean, non-toxic, cost effective and ecofriendly protocols for synthesis of nanoparticles.
The current study aim to characterization and biosynthesis of gold nano particles (Au NPs) using calyx aqueous extract of Hibiscus sabdariffa L. and study of their antimicrobial activity.
Gold nano particles (AuNPs) were biosynthesized by using HAuCl4.3H2O and the calyx aqueous extract of Hibiscus sabdariffa L. In order to gain the best AuNPs with a uniform shape and size, parameters affecting on synthesis such as: volume of plant extract, pH of the reaction, concentration of HAuCl4.3H2O solution, time of reaction were investigated and optimized by UV-Vis spectrophotometry. Moreover, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used for further characterization of the nanoparticles. Finally, the antibacterial properties of gold nanoparticles were evaluated by disc diffusion method.
The results of transmission electron image identified the formation of spherical nanoparticles with a size range of 5-10nm. A sharp peak with a maximum absorbance of 570nm was observed which is the characteristic wavelength of gold nanoparticles. The highest inhibition were obtained with the gold nanoparticles against Hafnia alvei bacteria.
In this study, the gold nanoparticles synthesized by calyx aqueous extract of
H. sabdariffa L. and they have relatively good antibacterial activity against Gram-negative bacteria.

Salvia multicaulis Vahl. a medicinal plant belonging to the Lamiaceae family, has an extensive application in native and traditional medicine.
This research was conducted to investigate diversity of morphophysiological traits and content of essential oil, phenol and flavonoid of Salvia multicaulis ecotypes in different districts of Hamedan province, Iran.
In this study, 11 ecotypes of Salvia multicaulis were collected from different districts of Hamedan Province at the full flowering stage in spring 2016 and were evaluated for their morphophysiological and phytochemical characteristics. The classification of ecotypes was done on the basis of phytochemical and morphophysiological traits by cluster analysis and correlations among quantitative traits was also conducted by Pearson method.
Result showed that the essential oil content had positive significant correlation with plant height, inflorescence length, dry matter of flowering branche and essential oil yield. Also there was a positive significant correlation between essential oil yield with receptacle length, flower fresh and dry matter and plant dry matter. The heighes dry weight of flowering branch and flower was related to ecotypes of Lashkardar and west of Hamedan, respectively. The maximum plant dry weight was belong to Yelfan ecotype. The most essential oil content was related to Lashkardar and west of Hamedan ecotypes. Also, the highest content of phenol and flavonoid related to Vehnan ecotype. According to the cluster analysis, 11 ecotypes were divided into two groups.
The evaluation of morphophysiological and phytochemical traits showed that there was a considerable variation among different ecotypes of Salvia multicaulis in respect of morphophysiological and phytochemical characteristics.

Brain ischemia is one of the leading causes of death and physical disability worldwide. Flavonoids found in Raspberry fruit (RF) play an important role against oxidative stress injuries in the biological systems.
The present study was carried out to evaluate the effect of RF on ischemia/reperfusion (I/R)-induced brain injury in rats.
In the present experimental study, 42 wistar adult male rats weighing 200–250 g were divided into six groups as sham operated (Sh), ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) received normal saline (I嗨), I/R groups treated with RF extract (I, 50, 100, or 200 mg/kg, IP, respectively). The global cerebral I/R was induced by occluding bilateral common carotid arteries for 30 min, followed by reperfusion. Behavioral test performed with shuttle box and analgesia test performed with tail flick test.
Administration of RF extract 50, 100, or 200 mg/kg doses increased passive avoidance memory significantly (P Results of this study showed that RF extract possesses protective effects against pain and memory deficits induced by I/R, which may be due to its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects.

Agriculture products, especially medical plants after harvest should be processed by different processes such as removal of foreign bodies, washing and cleaning, drying, packaging and so forth. One of main postharvest stages of medical plant especially peppermint is drying process.
The aim of this study is design a solar dryer equipped with double pass collector to drying process of peppermint and comparison their results with traditional drying methods (sun and shade).
In this study drying process of peppermint with different methods of solar drying (by solar dryer designed in this study) and also traditional drying (shade and sun drying) were investigated and compared.
The drying time required for dehydration of peppermint in solar drying method was 150 min, which it was approximately 82% and 55% shorter than to traditional methods of shade and sun. Furthermore, dehydration rate in drying methods of solar drying, sun drying and shade drying were 26.77, 12.48 and 4.48 (kg H2O/kg D.M h), respectively. The results of mathematical modelling indicated that Midli and kucuk (in drying methods of solar and shade) and Aghbashlo et al (in drying method of sun) can be fitted drying curve of this medical plant with high accuracy. Also, solar drying by dryer could be protecting the essential oil of this plant in the best form. The results show that the main components of peppermint essential oil was included: 1,8-Cineole, cis-Sabinene hydrate, Menthone, Menthofuran, iso-Menthone, Menthol and iso-Menthol
Generally, solar drying method of peppermint was recommended as the best method for postharvest processing of this medical plant.

Apoptosis is a type of programmed cell death that occurs by a series of Intercellular messages under Specific conditions.
The aim of present study was investigat role of the Adiantum capillus veneris extract on modulation of Bax and Bcl2 Apoptotic markers of lung in trained rats and exposed to hypoxic stress.
14 male Wistar rats were sampels of This study, that were Quite healthy and had no disease history (4 weeks old, 72±9 gr weight) that exposed to hypoxic Environment for 3 weeks after 6 weeks high intensity interval training. Half of the samples were taken 500 ml Adiantum capillus veneris extract Per kilogram of body weight in During exposure to hypoxia environment. Finally, lung tissue was extracted for Immunohistochemical Measurements.
Statistical analysis showed that Adiantum capillus veneris extract Consumption for 3 veeks in samples that exposed to hypoxia, Significantly reduced Bax protein Expression of Pulmonary alveolar (P≤0.05). also was observed Adiantum capillus veneris extract Consumption for 3 veeks non Significantly increased Bcl2 protein expression (P> 0.05) and Significantly reduced Bax /Bcl2 Ratio(P≤0.05).
It seems that Adiantum capillus veneris extract, Could possibly modulat Pro-apoptotic and anti-apoptotic proteins expression in pulmonary alveolars that exposed to hypoxic Environment that likely has Considerable effects to Inhibition of lung Pro-apoptotic reactions Due hypoxia.