Research Journal of Pharmacognosy
Volume:1 Issue: 3, Summer 2014

Laurus nobilis L. (sweet laurel) is one of the volatile oil bearing plants of Lauraceae family. It is cultivated in different parts of Iran and its leaves and fruits have been used in food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries. There are a few reports about the effects of some environmental conditions on the quality and quantity of laurel volatiles. The goal of our work was to search the seasonal variations on the L. nobilis leaves volatile composition. The volatiles of four samples of the dried leaves of L. nobilis collected in March, June, September and December 2009 in Isfahan, Iran were prepared by using a Clevenger type apparatus for 3 hours and were analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy. Twenty-nine, thirty-one, thirty-three and thirty-four components consisting 96.91%, 97.66%, 97.46% and 95.44% of the total compounds were identified of the volatiles obtained with yields of 1.1%, 1.5%, 1.4% and 0.8% (w/w), subsequently. The main compound was found to be 1,8-cineole (30.80-40.25%). Although twenty-seven out of thirty-six volatile components were similar in different seasons, there were some differences between other compounds of our four samples. While the essential oil composition of the March and June plant samples were characterized by presence of 1,8-cineole, δ-3-carene and camphor, the volatiles of September and December plant samples contained 1,8-cineole, camphene and sabinene. Some compounds like eugenol, methyl eugenol and α-terpenyl acetate were not affected apparently by seasonal changes.

A notable amount of medicinal plants grow in Iran and local communities in different parts of the country have developed a deep knowledge of various uses of plants during their old history. Several ethnobotanical studies have been conducted by the Traditional Medicine and Material Medica Research Center (TMRC) to investigate the use of medicinal plants by local people. Some of these studies have been carried out in Kohgiluye va Boyer Ahmad, Azarbayjan-e-Sharghi and Golestan provinces. These ethnobotanical data have been collected by semi-structured interviews. In the present study, two villages of Hamedan province were investigated and eleven informants were interviewed. Our results have presented 45 traditionally used plant species, belonging to 23 plant families and 39 genera. Asteraceae and Fabaceae were the dominant locally used families. The plants were used both for medicinal and non-medicinal purposes and the most treated problems were digestive disorders and infections.

WHO recommends artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) as the most effective choice to treat malaria. For developing transgenic plants with high accumulation of artemisinin (by introducing genes encoding enzymes which regulate the biosynthetic pathway of artemisinin), an efficient protocol for tissue culture and plant regeneration is necessary. In the present study, leaf explants of Artemisia sieberi were cultivated in Murashige & Skoog based medium supplemented by combination of different plant growth regulators including 6-benzyl-aminopurine (BA), α-naphthalene-acetic acid (NAA), indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), picloram (Pic) and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D). The highest frequency of shoot induction was obtained on MS medium supplemented with 2 mg/L BA plus 0.05 mg/L NAA (95% regeneration) and MS medium supplemented with 2 mg/L BA plus 0.5 mg/L IAA (85% regeneration). Rooting was obtained on MS medium supplemented with 0.05 mg/L NAA. The present study has revealed a simple, reliable, rapid and high efficient regeneration system for A. sieberi Besser as a source of artemisinin in short period via adventitious shoot induction procedure.

Herbal medicines can be used as the potential sources of anti-oxidative compounds to help the treatment of diseases associated to oxidative stress. In this paper, the Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP) activity of four Lamiaceae herbal extracts, which traditionally applied in oxidative stress related diseases, has been evaluated and total phenolics contents of these extracts determined by using Folin-Ciocalteu reagent. The aqueous methanol extracts were prepared by percolation method and investigated for antioxidant properties and total phenolics content evaluation. All the extracts showed antioxidant effect from 123.6±4.6 mmol of FeSO4.7H2Oequivalent/100 g dried extract in Scutellaria tornefortii to 551.5±16.0 mmol of FeSO4.7H2Oequivalent/100 g dried extract in Satureja sahendica. Interestingly, although Satureja sahendica exhibited the most antioxidant activity, the highest content of polyphenolics belonged to Stachys byzantina. Taking together, antioxidant activity of the mentioned medicinal plants is not necessarily associated with polyphenolic compounds and might be partially due to the presence of other polar constituents like terpenoid-glycosides in aqueous extracts that traditionally used as decoction.

Salvia is one of the largest genera of  Lamiaceae family. Several species of this genus are perfumed and wealthy in essential oils. Some of them are used in industry, pharmacy and aromatherapy. They have shown different biological effects such as antibacterial and antioxidant activity. For the present study, Salvia verticillata L. was collected from Shahrestanak, Mazandaran, Iran. Hydrodistilled essential oil from the aerial parts of this plant was obtained with a Clevenger type  apparatus  and was analyzed by GC and GC/MS. Moreover, the cytotoxic activity of the essential oil was investigated against HT-29 (colon adenocarcinoma), Caco-2 (colorectal adenocarcinoma), T-47D (breast ductal carcinoma) and NIH-3T3 (Swiss mouse embryo fibroblast) cell lines by MTT test. 59 components were characterized from the oil with trans-caryophyllene (24.40%), β-phellandrene (9.08%), α-humulene (8.61%), bicyclogermacrene (6.32%), spathulenol (5.89%) and β-pinene (5.00%) as the major constituents. These compounds represented 97.67% of the essential oil and included monoterpenes (34.83%) and sesquiterpens (61.84%). The results of the cytotoxicity assay demonstrated that the essential oil of S. verticillata showed higher cytotoxic effect on Caco-2 cell line.

Phenolic and flavonoid compounds are secondary metabolites of plants which possess various activities such as anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anti-diabetes and anticancer effects. It has been established that these compounds can scavenge free radicals produced in the body. Because of this ability, not only the plants containing phenolic and flavonoid compounds but also, the pure compounds are used in medicinal products for prevention and treatment of many disorders. Considering that the golden aim of the pharmaceutical industries is using the most effective compounds with lower concentrations, determination of the best combination of the compounds with synergistic effects is important. In the present study, synergistic antioxidant effects of four phenolic compounds including caffeic acid, gallic acid, rosmarinic acid, chlorogenic acid and two flavonoids,  rutin and quercetin, have been investigated by FRAP (Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power) method. The synergistic effect was assessed by comparing the experimental antioxidant activity of the mixtures with calculated theoretical values and the interactions of the compounds were determined. The results showed that combination of gallic acid and caffeic acid demonstrated considerable synergistic effects (137.8%) while other combinations were less potent. Among examined substances, rutin was the only one which had no effect on the other compounds. The results of ternary combinations of compounds demonstrated antagonistic effects in some cases. This was more considerable in mixture of rutin, caffeic acid, rosmarinic acid (-21.8%), chlorogenic acid, caffeic acid, rosmarinic acid (-20%), rutin, rosmarinic acid, gallic acid (-18.5%) and rutin, chlorogenic acid, caffeic acid (-15.8%), while, combination of quercetin, gallic acid, caffeic acid (59.4%) and quercetin, gallic acid, rutin (55.2%) showed the most synergistic effects. It was concluded that binary and ternary combination of quercetin, rutin, caffeic acid, chlorogenic acid, gallic acid and rosmarinic acid could influence the antioxidant ability; therefore, to obtain the best antioxidant effects in products containing these materials, the interactions should be mentioned.

Improving the solubility of non-soluble herbal materials is an issue of interest in cell culture based experiments. Evaluating the biological activity of these materials could become possible with the aid of cosolvents/surfactants which obviously should have little or no cytotoxic activity. In the present study, the cytotoxic activity of six cosolvents/surfactants: ethanol, methanol, Tween 20 and 80, propylene glycol (PG) and poly ethylene glycol 400 (PEG) which are usually helpful in dissolving non-soluble herbal extracts, has been evaluated against HepG-2, MCF-7 and HT-29 cells by MTT assay. Among the investigated cosolvents/surfactants, Tween 20 and 80 demonstrated the highest and ethanol and methanol the lowest cytotoxicity to the evaluated cell lines, suggesting the two latter as proper aids for improving solubility in biological experiments.

Rhus coriaria L. is known as Sumac. R. coriaria extracts are important in drug development with numerous pharmacological reputations in the South-Eastern Anatolia, Mediterranean area and Western Asia especially in Iran. Regarding the new multi-functional properties of R. coriaria and the related valuable ongoing reports, we were prompted to review the phytochemical and pharmacological properties of this species. The data were collected using scientific journals, books and websites such as Scopus, PubMed and Google Scholar. For a long time, R. coriaria has been used as a spice by grinding the dried fruits with salt, and it has also been widely used as a medicinal herb in traditional medicine for its atheroprotective effect and its ability to treat eye diseases, wounds, bowel disorders, ring worms and skin disorders. In addition, R. coriaria has recently shown to have hepatoprotective, anti-ischemic, antimicrobial as well as hypoglycemic and hyperlipidemic effects. Volatile substances, flavonoids, tannins and xanthones have been reported from this plant. Due to its easy collection and the remarkable biological activities, R. coriaria has been used both as food and medicine in some parts of the world especially Iran. This article presents comprehensive analyzed information on the botanical, chemical and pharmacological aspects of R. coriaria.