Zapotec and Mixe use of Tropical Habitats for securing medicinal plants in MéXico

Medicinal plants are essential in the medical systems of the Mixe and Zapotec. In this study ethno-ecological strategies, employed by the two neighboring Indian groups in Mexico, for obtaining medicinal plants are analyzed. The indigenous classification of the environment is notably different from the Western one and distinguishes six dissimilar principal "zones” or land use types. Most ethnomedically important species are cultivated in the "house garden” or gathered in the community or its immediate surroundings. The house garden, for example, contributes 31.8% and 26.2% of all medical taxa for the Mixe and Zapotec, respectively. These ethnobotanical data on the indigenous uses indicate that anthropogenic types of vegetation yield the largest percentage of medicinal tax

Medicinal and food plants: Isthmus Sierra Zapotec criteria for selection

The Zapotec inhabitants of the Sierra de Juarez foothills in Oaxaca (Mexico) live in an area of great biological diversity. As farmers (campesinos), and occasional gatherers, hunters, and fishermen Zapotecs have a deep relationship with, and detailed knowledge of, their natural environment. Consequently, in daily subsistence and in response to illness, plants play major roles. This paper examines cultural criteria applied by the Sierra Zapotecs for selecting plants as food and/or medicine. These criteria are based on binary forms of classi¬fication. While the "hot"/"cold" dichotomy is dominant, other opposing systems exist, such as amargo/simple (bitter/neutral). Whether a plant is regarded as frio ("cold"), caliente ("hot") or (in some rare cases) templado ("temperate") depends mainly on one of the following criteria: habitat and/or the season of growth and collection, analogy in appearance to aspects of the illness being treated or features associated with well-being (doctrine of signatures), and taste and smell properties. Criteria for plant selection are not based on a single classificatory system, but are an integration of several. A comparison with ethno¬botanical data from neighboring Mixe clearly showed differences due to cultural background

Applied environmental stresses to enhance the levels of polyphenolics in leaves of hawthorn plants

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72331/1/j.1399-3054.2004.00332.x.pd

1H NMR-based metabolomics combined with HPLC-PDA-MS-SPE-NMR for investigation of standardized Ginkgo biloba preparations

Commercial preparations of Ginkgo biloba are very complex mixtures prepared from raw leaf extracts by a series of extraction and prepurification steps. The pharmacological activity is attributed to a number of flavonoid glycosides and unique terpene trilactones (TTLs), with largely uncharacterized pharmacological profiles on targets involved in neurological disorders. It is therefore important to complement existing targeted analytical methods for analysis of Ginkgo biloba preparations with alternative technology platforms for their comprehensive and global characterization. In this work, 1H NMR-based metabolomics and hyphenation of high-performance liquid chromatography, photo-diode array detection, mass spectrometry, solid-phase extraction, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (HPLC-PDA-MS-SPE-NMR) were used for investigation of 16 commercially available preparations of Ginkgo biloba. The standardized extracts originated from Denmark, Italy, Sweden, and United Kingdom, and the results show that 1H NMR spectra allow simultaneous assessment of the content as well as identity of flavonoid glycosides and TTLs based on a very simple sample-preparation procedure consisting of extraction, evaporation and reconstitution in acetone-d6. Unexpected or unwanted extract constituents were also easily identified in the 1H NMR spectra, which contrasts traditional methods that depend on UV absorption or MS ionizability and usually require availability of reference standards. Automated integration of 1H NMR spectral segments (buckets or bins of 0.02 ppm width) provides relative distribution plots of TTLs based on their H-12 resonances. The present study shows that 1H NMR-based metabolomics is an attractive method for non-selective and comprehensive analysis of Ginkgo extracts

Are luminescent bacteria suitable for online detection and monitoring of toxic compounds in drinking water and its sources?

Biosensors based on luminescent bacteria may be valuable tools to monitor the chemical quality and safety of surface and drinking water. In this review, an overview is presented of the recombinant strains available that harbour the bacterial luciferase genes luxCDABE, and which may be used in an online biosensor for water quality monitoring. Many bacterial strains have been described for the detection of a broad range of toxicity parameters, including DNA damage, protein damage, membrane damage, oxidative stress, organic pollutants, and heavy metals. Most lux strains have sensitivities with detection limits ranging from milligrams per litre to micrograms per litre, usually with higher sensitivities in compound-specific strains. Although the sensitivity of lux strains can be enhanced by various molecular manipulations, most reported detection thresholds are still too high to detect levels of individual contaminants as they occur nowadays in European drinking waters. However, lux strains sensing specific toxic effects have the advantage of being able to respond to mixtures of contaminants inducing the same effect, and thus could be used as a sensor for the sum effect, including the effect of compounds that are as yet not identified by chemical analysis. An evaluation of the suitability of lux strains for monitoring surface and drinking water is therefore provided