Phyto-constituents, Pharmacological Properties and Biotechnological Approaches for Conservation of the Anti-diabetic Functional Food Medicinal Plant Salacia: A Review Note

Background and Objective: Genus Salacia L. (Celastraceae) is a woody climbing medicinal plant consisting of about 200 species with many endangered species located throughout the world’s tropical areas. Various parts of the plant as food, functional food additive and tea have been extensively used to treat a variety of ailments like diabetes and obesity as well as inflammatory and skin diseases. The present work reviews the phytochemical properties, pharmacological activities, biotechnological strategy for conservation and safety evaluation of this valuable genus.Results and Conclusion: More efforts are needed to isolate new phytoconstituents from this important medicinal plant. The  echanism of anti-diabetic action has not been done at molecular and cellular levels, thus the fundamental biological understanding is required for future applications. Though the safety of plant species has been well documented and has been confirmed by many toxicological studies, further toxicity research and clinical trials arerecommended. In order to sustain harvest and conservation, agronomic practices for cultivation have to be developed. Establishment of more efficient protocols for in vitro propagation is necessary too. Approaches like genetic manipulation, hairy root culture, media standardization, and use of inducers/precursors for elevation of secondary metabolite levels could also be attractive.Conflict of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest

Pre-harvest CaCl2 and GA3 treatments improve postharvest quality of green bell peppers (Capsicum annum L.) during storage period

The present study investigated the effects of CaCl2 (0.5) and GA₃ (0.05 g L−1) pre-harvest treatments both at two (2T) and three spraying times (3T) on some qualitative characteristics of green bell pepper stored for 0, 10 and 20 d at 1 and 10 °C. The purpose of this study was to mitigate postharvest lesions and increase chilling injury resistance in peppers. Weight loss, firmness, total soluble solids (TSS), vitamin C (VitC), phenolics, electrolyte leakage (EL), malondialdehyde (MDA), chilling injury, chlorophyll and calcium contents, peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT) and antioxidant activities were measured. The highest and lowest weight losses were observed after 20 d at 1 and 10 °C on control and CaCl2 treatments respectively. The highest (30.8 at 1 and 21.4 N at 10 °C) and lowest (23.5 at 1 and 14.2 N at 10 °C) firmness was measured in fruit from the CaCl2 (3T) treatment and control, respectively. The amount of VitC and phenolics were higher in the control compared to all other treatments. After 20 d, the highest amount of MDA and EL, as well as the lowest amounts of calcium were measured in the control, gibberellin and calcium treatments, respectively. Chilling injury increased after 20 d of storage at 1 °C. However, all treatments with no significant difference had less chilling injury and TSS and more antioxidant enzymes (POD and CAT) and chlorophyll than the control. The results reveal that all CaCl2 and GA₃ treatments increased overall quality of pepper at harvest time and preserved the quality and reduced the chilling injury during the storage period. Hence, these treatments can be commercially effective strategy to improve shelf life and maintain the quality of green bell pepper fruit during harvest and postharvest

Evaluation of genetic stability using FRAPD markers as novel method along with antioxidant and anti-diabetic properties of micropropagated Salacia chinensis L.

Salacia chinensis L., a perennial medicinal plant, is well-known for its well-documented anti-diabetic properties. The daily growing demand in pharmaceutical industry is stimulating the conservation and wide-ranging production of the plant using plant tissue culture techniques (micropropagation). In the present study, the plants generated by direct micropropagation from nodal explants were assessed using fluorescently labeled RAPD (FRAPD) primers. Although standard RAPD primer bands in agarose gel showed genetic stability, using FRAPD analysis in genetic DNA sequencer as a novel strategy showed more accurate and reliable method has indicated by the evidence in 5% genetic variation. Antioxidant and anti-diabetic activities of micropropagated plants versus mother plant were examined using DPPH, FRAP, α-amylase, and α-glucosidase assays. The results showed that the micropropagated plants, which are able to produce higher amount of secondary metabolites than the mother plant, possess higher in vitro antioxidant and anti-diabetic properties