Introduction: Michelia champaca l. (Magnoliaceae) is an ancient Indian medicinal plant a native of the Indian subcontinent and possessing numerous traditional uses. β-sitosterol is an important plant sterol present in Michelia which is reported to posses’ chemopreventive and adaptogenic properties. In the present study, High Performance thin layer Chromatography has been developed for detection...

Epicuticular leaf waxes of Ginkgo biloba, Magnolia grandiflora and Liriodendron tulipifera contain homologous series of hydrocarbons, wax esters, benzyl acyl esters, aldehydes, primary alcohols, and fatty acids. None of these lipid classes is found to contain any main component dominating. In addition to these usual wax lipids, in G. biloba leaf wax a secondary alcohol namely nonacosan-10-ol (1...

The Red Data Book of Japanese Vascular Plants is based on their risk of extinction. In order to construct the list, 2000 taxa were evaluated using population data and rates of decline for approximately 4400 grids, each of approximately 100 km(2). This database can be used to estimate the impact of human activity on a threatened plant's risk of extinction. In order to evaluate extinction risks a...

The effectiveness for vasomotor symptoms and sleep disorders plus the long-term safety of a nutraceutical combination of agnus-castus and magnolia extracts combined with soy isoflavones (SI) and lactobacilli were assessed in postmenopausal women. A controlled study was carried out in menopausal women comparing this nutraceutical combination (ESP group) with a formulation containing isoflavones ...

Magnolia officinalis, a component of Asian herbal teas, has long been employed in traditional Japanese and Chinese medicine to treat numerous maladies. Honokiol, a biphenolic compound, is now considered to be one of the major active ingredients of Magnolia extract, and is under intense investigation for its anti-angiogenic, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor and neuroprotective properties. Biochemica...

In obesity, cardiac insulin resistance is a putative cause of cardiac hypertrophy and dysfunction. In our previous study, we observed that Magnolia extract BL153 attenuated high-fat-diet (HFD)-induced cardiac pathogenic changes. In this study, we further investigated the protective effects of the BL153 bioactive constituent, 4-O-methylhonokiol (MH), against HFD-induced cardiac pathogenesis and ...

The hepatocellular carcinoma is one of the most common malignant tumour with high level of mortality rate due to its rapid progression and high resistance to conventional chemotherapies. Thus, the search for novel therapeutic leads is of global interest. Herein, a small set of derivatives of magnolol 1 and honokiol 2, the main components of Magnolia grandiflora and Magnolia obovata, were evalua...

Phyllotactic pattern results from genetic control of lateral primordia size (physiological or physical) relative to the size of organogenic lateral surface of shoot apical meristem (SAM). In order to understand the diversity of patterns and ontogenetic transitions of phyllotaxis we have developed a geometric model allowing changes of the above proportion in a computer simulation ofSAM’s growth....

Intron loss is often thought to occur through retroprocessing, which is the reverse transcription and genomic integration of a spliced transcript. In plant mitochondria, several unambiguous examples of retroprocessing are supported by the parallel loss of an intron and numerous adjacent RNA edit sites, but in most cases, the evidence for intron loss via retroprocessing is weak or lacking entire...

Honokiol, 2-(4-hydroxy-3-prop-2-enyl-phenyl)-4-prop-2-enyl-phenol, an active component of Magnolia officinalis and Magnolia grandiflora, exerts various pharmacological activities such as antitumorigenic, antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, neurotrophic, and antithrombotic effects. To investigate whether honokiol acts as a perpetrator in drug interactions, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) levels ...