BACKGROUND The therapeutic and health promoting role of highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFAs) from fish, i.e. eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, 20:5n-3) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6n-3) are well known. These same benefits may however be shared by some of their precursors, the polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), such as stearidonic acid (SDA, 18:4 n-3). In order to obtain alternative sources ...

Background and objectives: Many Nepeta species have been commonly used in Iranian folk medicine as tranquilizer, relaxant, carminative and restorative tonic for nervous and respiratory disorders. Inflammation is a problem in many diseases and has an important role in brain function that can cause neurodegenerative disorders. Inflamed glial cells can exacerbate neurodegenerative disease...

Root extracts of Rauwolfia serpentina have been used for centuries in Ayurvedic medicine as a panacea for a wide variety of physical as well as mental disorders. The potential of Agrobacterium rhizogenes-mediated genetic transformation for the synthesis of phytomolecules of high pharmaceutical value is now well established and documented. Transgenic roots were induced from R. serpentina leaf ex...

Salvia miltiorrhiza Bge. f.alba is a variety of S. miltiorrhiza Bunge which is a well-known and very important traditional chinese medicinal herb. In this study, we successfully induced hairy roots from leaves of S. miltiorrhiza Bge.f.alba by Agrobacterium rhizogenes ACCC10060. As determined by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), these hairy root cultures had the ability to produce s...

Recombinant subunit vaccines consisting of the F1 and V antigens of Yersinia pestis have shown remarkable promise for protection of animals and humans against bubonic and pneumonic plague. Previously we demonstrated that intranasal administration of a recombinant protein consisting of the ricin B chain (RTB) fused with an antigen purified from transgenic Nicotiana tabacum (tobacco) hairy root c...

Lattice henbane (Hyoscyamus reticulatus L.) is an herbaceous, biennial plant belonging to Solanaceae family. H. reticulatus hairy roots were established from two-week-old leaves infected by A7 strain of Agrobacterium rhizogenes on solid Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium. In this study, abiotic elicitors including; Sodium silicate (Na2SiO3) with different concentrations (0, 1, 5 and 7 mM) and silv...

This study was performed to investigate the effect of Ag+ as an elicitor on the activity of antioxidant enzymes, content of H2O2, accumulation of total tocopherol and antioxidant activity in hairy root cultures of Silybum marianum (L.) Gaertn. The hairy roots were treated with 2 mM Ag+. The treated and non-treated hairy roots were harvested in the same time and data on H2O2 content, DPPH, tocop...

Plants are the important sources of drugs. Secondary metabolites are responsible for therapeutic propertiesin plants. Three compounds including (-)-hyoscyamine, its racemate atropine, and scopolamine (hyoscine) are the most famous tropane alkaloids in the Solanaceae familly. Nowadays, attempts to developthese alkaloids in biotechnological procedures which are principally based on the hairy root...

The Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of hairy roots creates a rapid and simple means to introduce and express foreign genes in plant cells that are capable of synthesizing specific natural products. We describe a method for the production of transgenic hairy root cultures of peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) using Agrobacterium rhizogenes R1000, a strain with the binary vector pBI121. We evalua...

Resveratrol and its derivatives are natural stilbenes associated with many health benefits that include those conferred by their antioxidant and anticancer properties. While stilbenes can be recovered as an extract from a selected number of plants, these products are not suitable for many applications in the food/pharmaceutical sectors due to high levels of impurities as well as the overall low...