Understanding the Antiproliferative Activity of Plant Extracts

Many plants possess medicinal properties. Some, such as the Pacific yew, have yielded chemotherapeutic drugs (taxanes). Scientists report that other extracts such as the leaves of Calendula officinalis (marigold), Vinca rosea (periwinkle), Viscum cruciatum (mistletoe), and Rosmarinus officinalis (rosemary) have anti-tumor activity. In most cases, the chemical components responsible for antiproliferative activity have not been identified and it is unclear if any individual components are as effective in isolation as they are in the context of the whole extract. Furthermore, in most cases, there are no data indicating whether these extracts have synergistic effects or cause negative reactions when used with other drugs. We are using HeLa (adenocarcinoma), RAW 264.7 (leukemia), HepG2 (hepatoma), MDA-MB-231 (adenocarcinoma), and human foreskin fibroblasts (HFF, non-tumorigenic) to test the antiproliferative activity of several plant extracts. We identified five extracts, grapeseed, guava, yew, juniper berry, and Vinca, that slow the growth of all five cell lines in a dose-dependent manner. We are using a variety of methods to understand the mechanism by which these extracts are blocking cell growth

Discovery and Annotation of Two Phages that Infect Microbacterium foliorum: Tedro and Bajuniper

We isolated and purified Tedro and BAjuniper which infect the host Microbacterium foliorium. Tedro is a lytic, cluster EF phage isolated from soil collected in Hawarden, Iowa. Its genome is 56,197 bp long, circularly permuted, and includes 83 protein-coding genes and no tRNA genes. We are examining two of Tedro’s genes, genes 56 and 57, both of which are predicted to encode a DnaE-like DNA polymerase III (alpha) in more detail. Tedro_57 is twice as large as Tedro_56 so we are using additional bioinformatic tools to understand these genes. BAjuniper was isolated from soil collected in a garden in Orange City, Iowa. Its genome is 41,985 bp long. It was assigned to cluster EB. BAjuniper’s genome includes one tRNA gene and we will finalize BAjuniper’s annotation shortly