The Effect of Salicylic Acid on Response to Water Deficit in Basil

Drought-induced stress is the main limiting factor that affects growth and development in plants. In this study, the effect of exogenous application of salicylic acid (SA) on drought tolerance in basil was investigated. The analysis showed that application of SA under drought stress had significant effects on physiological and biochemical parameters, such as photosynthetic pigments content, total phenolics, flavonoids, flavanols and protein content and peroxidise activity, but had no significant effects on the morphological parameters, such as stem length, length and areaof leaves . In drought conditions, total phenolics and peroxidase activity reduced significantly, but all photosynthetic pigments, total flavonoids, flavanols and proteins increased significantly. Application of SA displayed some alleviating effects against drought induced stress through increase of plant growth, total flavonoids content and peroxidase activit

Aconitum lycoctonum L.: Phenolic Compounds and Their Bioactivities

The very first report on the phenolic composition of aerial parts of Aconitum lycoctonum L., a species belonging to the toxic Aconitum genus, is presented here. Aerial parts were subjected to the extraction with four different solvents and analyzed via LC-MS/MS for the content of phenolic acids and flavonoids. Furthermore, isolated extracts were tested for antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. Ethanolic extracts of both flowers and vegetative parts (leaves and stems) were found to be the richest in the phenolic compounds, following the water extracts. Ethanolic extract of flowers was very rich in flavonoid apigenin, while high levels of salicylic and 4-hydroxybenzoic acids were found in the same extract of leaves and stems. On contrary, water extract contained significant amounts of kaempferol and rosmarinic acid. All extracts showed potent antioxidant activity, which is correlated with the content of phenolics. The antimicrobial assay showed that all extracts, except aqueous, were quite potent against all microbial organisms tested