Taxadiene is the first committed precursor to paclitaxel, marketed as Taxol, arguably the most important anticancer agent against ovarian and breast cancer. In Taxus, taxadiene is directly synthesized from geranylgeranyl diphosphate (GGPP) that is the common precursor for diterpenoids and is found in most plants and microbes. In this study, Artemisia annua L., a Chinese medicinal herb that grow...

Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com could be evidenced for these drugs. Willcox is right in stating that no large scale, randomized, double blind clinical trials confirming the efficiency of Artemisia plants against malaria are available. Indeed, they are forbidden by WHO. Only clinical trials with ACTs have been run in high numbers. OXFAM and others even claim that Africans are guine...

BACKGROUND The temperature in arid Eastern Central Asia is projected to increase in the future, accompanied by increased variability of precipitation. To investigate the impacts of climate change on plant species in this area, we selected two widespread species as candidates, Clematis sibirica and C. songorica, from montane coniferous forest and arid steppe habitats respectively. METHODOLOGY/...

Meyer spruce (Picea meyeri Rehd. et Wils.) is a relict conifer, and Chinese leymus (Leymus chinensis [Trin.] Tzvel.) is a dominant grass in typical steppe of the Xilin River Basin, northern China. Herein, we evaluated the relationships between tree-ring width index of Meyer spruce, climate and above-ground biomass of Chinese leymus, and reconstructed above-ground biomass of Chinese leymus from ...

In Inner Mongolia, steppe grasslands face desertification or degradation because of human overuse and abandonment after inappropriate agricultural management. The soils in these abandoned croplands exist in heterogeneous environments characterized by widely fluctuating microbial growth. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis of microbial genes encoding proteins involved in the nitrogen...

Frozen ground may regulate the phenological shifts of dry and cold grasslands at the southern edge of the Eurasian cryosphere. In this study, an investigation based on the MODIS Collection 5 phenology product and climatic data collected from 2001 to 2009 reveals the diverse responses of grassland phenology to interannual climate variability over various frozen ground regions in Mongolia. Compar...

Pollen and carbon isotope data from Natural Trap Cave provides insights into the environmental conditions of Bighorn Basin, in north-central Wyoming, USA during time intervals 151.1 to 132.2 cal ka BP, 51.8 17.4 10.4 BP present. Similarities between buildup penultimate last glacial maxima include abundant Artemisia, Amaranthaceae, Asteraceae, Poaceae pollen, which, when combined with high δ13C ...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are drivers of plant communities as they influence competition by increasing plants’ root absorptive surface. As such, AMF could be an important tool for ecological restoration. However, a lack research using in sagebrush steppe implies need more assessments its efficacy. Here, we assessed the ability commercial inoculum to colonize and growth three native Art...

In this article I present a new archaeological synthesis concerning the earliest formation of mobile pastoralist economies across central Eurasia. I argue that Eurasian steppe pastoralism developed along distinct local trajectories in the western, central, and (south)eastern steppe, sparking the development of regional networks of interaction in the late fourth and third millennia BC. The “Inne...

Global climate change projections suggest an increasing frequency of droughts and extreme rain events in the steppes of the Eurasian region. Using the eddy covariance method, we measured carbon and water balances of a meadow steppe ecosystem in Northeast China during 2 years which had contrasting precipitation patterns in spring seasons in 2007 and 2008. The meadow steppe sequestrated only 64Ð2...