Journal of Ethno-Pharmaceutical Products
Volume:1 Issue: 1, Winter-Spring 2014

A. calamus that grows in province of Baluchistan and Kerman in Iran plays a major role in the revival of traditional medicine. Despite the useful role of this plant in many ailments, its anti-bacterial properties are not well understood. In this study, we investigated anti-bacterial activities of rhizomes ware of A. calamus against various strains of bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. The anti-microbial activity of extracts of A.calamus was assessed by disc diffusion method. Rhizomes extracted by ethanol, methanol solvents and essential oil were obtained by clevenger apparatus. Antibacterial effects of the extracts tested at concentrations (25, 100, 200, 250, 300, 400 mg/ml). The Minimal Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) of extracts ranged from 25-100 mg/ml against the susceptible bacteria. All the Minimal Bactericidal Concentrations (MBCs) were the same as the MICs. Our results revealed that ethanolic and methanolic extracts have an inhibitory effect on all gram positive and negative strains and it is comparable with kanamycin, an anti-bacterial reference drug. Amongst extracts of A.calamus, ethanolic extracts showed maximum inhibitory activity (16mm) against Staphylococcus epidermidis. So we can conclude that this plant has anti-bacterial properties on all gram positive and negative bacteria. The result can be related to the nature of the compounds found in this plant. The effective GC-MS method was performed for the determination of essential oil compounds of A.calamus. The Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis revealed that the presence of phenyl propanoids, monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes and β-asarone in essential oil of the plant caused its antibacterial properties. Our result showed that the ethanolic and methanolic extracts of A. calamus could be useful for the development of effective treatment for the control of infectious diseases.

Sulforaphane (SFN) is an isothiocyanate which is produced through glucoraphanin hydrolysis via myrosinase activity. In the present study, SFN content and peroxidase activity has been assessed in treated Lepidium draba seedlings with different concentrations of iron and copper during 8 and 16 hours treatment. The results showed that the SFN content drastically elevated at treatment with 1 mg/L Fe2+ after 8 hours treatment which was around two-fold compared to the control. But its content decreased in treated seedlings with higher Fe2+ concentrations as well as treatment with all concentrations of Cu2+. Furthermore, promotion of peroxidase activity was seen in the treated seedlings with the both elicitors. The data revealed that not only the inhibitory effect of Cu2+ on SFN production was stronger than Fe2+, but its stimulatory effect on peroxidase activity was also remarkable especially after 16 hours treatment. It seems that the metals induce triggering of reactive oxygen species (ROS) which at low Fe2+ concentration leads to induce glucoraphanin biosynthesis pathway. While at higher Fe2+ concentrations as well as treatment seedlings with Cu2+, ROS lead to induce antioxidant enzyme system.

Cumin (Cuminum cyminum L.) is one of the most important cultivable medicinal plants in Iran and today, it is the second most popular spice in the world after black pepper. It is essential to know the relationships between yield and its components in cumin breeding programs. Therefore, different multivariate statistical analysis was performed on plant characters in cumin to determine the relationships between seed yield and seed yield components under field conditions. Positive and significant relationships were found statistically between the umbel number/plant, seed number/plant and biomass in all sowing dates. There were also very high correlation coefficients for plant height and number of branches with seed yield/plant at most of the sowing dates. Stepwise linear multiple regression analysis for each sowing dates indicated that 89% to 97.2% of the total variation in seed yield/plant was explained by the variation of the seed number/plant, umbel number/plant and 1000-seed weight in the different sowing dates. Path analysis revealed that seed number/plant had strong direct effects on seed yield of cumin in all sowing dates and 1000-seed weight in most sowing dates had positive direct effects on seed yield/plant which shows their potentials in breeding programs. There were high and significant correlation coefficients between umbel number/plant and plant height with seed yield/plant that was resulted from greatest indirect effects of mentioned traits through seed number/plant. In accordance with results of this research, it can be concluded that seed number/plant and 1000-seed weight are good selection criteria for improving seed yield in the cumin, meanwhile umbel number/plant and plant height have good potential to improve seed yield through indirect selection in breeding strategies.

The mode of agronomic traits inheritance was investigated in safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) in drought stress as a new report. Five generation including p 1, p 2, F1, F2 and F3 that derived from the cross of IL.111 (drought sensitive) ×Mex.22-191 (drought tolerance) were used in a randomized complete block design with two replications. Generation mean analysis was used to estimate genetic parameters. The additive model [d] was fitted for seed-weight, dry weight/plant and number of seeds/plant. The simple additive-dominance model [d, h] was fitted for number of seeds/ capsule. Additive-dominance model was not adequate for plant height, number of branches per plant and number of capsules per plant. Hence, dominance× dominance epistasis [l] was added to fit the model as [d, h, l] for these traits. So, the genetic control of mentioned traits was under additive, dominance and dominance× dominance gene effects. Obtained results could be suitable for designing of breeding strategies to improve seed yield of safflower in drought stress. The highest value for broad-sense (0.94) and narrow-sense (0.9) heritability were denoted to seeds/capsule.

Exchange rate pass-through to the price of traded goods is one of the important issues in economy of developing countries such as Iran and affects the efficiency of the exchange rate policies to improve the trade balance. The main aim of this paper is to empirically analyze exchange rate pass-through to Iran's saffron export price using panel data for twenty destination markets during 2000–2011. Utilizing the system generalized method of moments and controlling endogeneity of several explanatory variables, the estimation results showed that exchange rate pass-through was incomplete. Considering incomplete pass-through of exchange rate to Iran's saffron export price, it is concluded that Iranian exporters are able to discriminate price among destination markets and can absorb a portion of the change in the exchange rate in order to maintain or increase market share. The results also suggest that Iranian exporters partially offset the effect of tariff rate on saffron export price. Another important result is that macroeconomic environment in destination markets plays an important role in determining the Iran's saffron export price.

A pot experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of foliar spray of salicylic acid (0, 50, 100 ppm), ascorbic acid (0, 100, 200 ppm) and thiamine (0, 50, 100 ppm) on vegetative growth, flowering and photosynthetic pigments of marigold (Calendula officinalis L.) plants at greenhouse of SB University of Kerman, Iran. Results showed that application of salicylic acid and thiamine increased number of flowering stems. Stem height increased only by application of thiamine. Fresh and dry weight of the plants affected by all treatments. Foliar spray of all treatments significantly influenced chl.b and total chl contents but differences in the amount of chl.a and carotenoids content was not significant. Application of all treatments reduced stomatal length while number of stomata and electrolyte leakage reduced only by application of salicylic acid. The highest amount of reducing sugars obtained by application of ascorbic acid at 200 ppm and thiamine at 100 ppm, respectively. Application of salicylic acid and thiamine significantly increased the amount of medicinal compound hyperoside.

To investigate the effect of salinity stress on membrane stability index, membrane lipid peroxidation, catalase activity and protein content of Fenugreek (Trigonellafoenum) an experiment with five levels of short-term salinity stress (0, 50, 100, 150 and 200 mM) was carried out at the laboratory of agriculture faculty of Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Iran. The treatments were arranged based on a completely randomized design with three replicates. The results showed that salinity stress caused a significant reduction in protein content and membrane stability index of fenugreek compared to control. The mentioned parameters decreased with increasing in salinity concentration, so that the lowest and highest values of these traits belonged to 200 and 0 mM salinity. MDA and other aldehydes content of shoot and root as the measure of membrane lipid peroxidation and catalase activity were increased in response to short-term salinity stress. Increased CAT in this plant indicates the tolerance capacity of the plant to protect itself from oxidative damage induced by NaCl.

This study was aimed to evaluate the antioxidative and urease inhibitory properties of the extracts from Citrullus colocynthis L. The extracts of the root and pulp of fruit were prepared by soxhlet apparatus in methanol as solvent. The antioxidative activities, including DPPH radical scavenging activity, reducing power and total antioxidant activity were studied in vitro. The results showed that both tested extracts have antioxidative characteristics and it was found that the antioxidative activities of all the extracts increased with the increase of the concentration. In this report the methanolic extracts of C. colocynthis root and pulp were evaluated for their effect on inhibition of soybean urease using the indophenol method as described by Weatherburn. The inhibition potency was measured by spectroscopy technique at 630 nm which attributes to released ammonium. The extracts showed inhibitory activities with IC50 7.31μg/µl for root extract and 13.71μg/µl for pulp extract.