Freeze-dried juice obtained from Aloe vera and heated for 15 minutes at 80 degrees inhibited several test microorganisms. Species of Aloe have had a long history as drug plants. This was pointed out by Morton (1) in a recent comprehensive review of Aloe from the standpoint of folk use and commercial exploitation. Fly and Kiem (2) recently carried out an investigation to ascertain whether Aloe v...

Instantly recognizable by its spiky green leaves, aloe vera is a succulent plant that stores water in its fleshy leaves and thus thrives in arid climates like deserts. Its use as a medicinal plant for soothing various external and internal woes dates back thousands of years. Currently, there?s some evidence to support its use for many of the ailments it?s traditionally been used to treat. Both ...

Traditional herbal drugs have a great demand in under developed countries due to their efficacy, low cost and lesser adverse effects, and they are considered to be “natural. Aloe vera at the dose of 500 mg body weight per oral was studied for the gross toxicities and hepatoprotective effect and observed the level of liver biochemical parameters in rabbits. Aloe vera showed highly significant (p...

Anthraquinones are natural phenolic compounds, which are reported to act as anti-aging, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-cancer, laxative and antitumor agents. They are abudant in plants like candle bush, aloes, cascara bark and rhubarb. The present work was to observe the effect of different forced degradation conditions by high-performance thin layer chromatography on potential markers i....

A 65-year-old man presented with recurrent generalized itching since 1 year. Examination revealed lichenified skin over the face and extensors of both extremities. He gave a history of rubbing the pulp of Aloe vera leaves on to his lesions whenever his itching worsened. Clinically, we suspected allergic contact dermatitis, possibly aggravated with Aloe vera. He was patch tested with the plant s...

Hymenocallis littoralis has allelochemical importance such as defensive compounds, insect repellents, attractants, and their role in ecological balance. Antioxidant activities of Hymenocallis littoralis bulb, anther, flower, stem, leaves and root methanolic extracts were evaluated using Ferric Reducing Antioxdiant Power (FRAP), 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), total phenolic and flavonoid ...

Pathogen attack and the plant's response to this attack affect herbivore oviposition preference and larval performance. Introduction of major resistance genes against Phytophthora infestans (Rpi-genes), the cause of the devastating late blight disease, from wild Solanum species into potato changes the plant-pathogen interaction dynamics completely, but little is known about the effects on non-t...

Apoptosis was postulated as the main barrier to replication of the Autographa californica nuclear polyhedrosis virus (AcMNPV) in a Spodoptera littoralis SL2 cell line (N. Chejanovsky and E. Gershburg, Virology 209:519-525, 1995). Thus, we hypothesized that the viral apoptotic suppressor gene p35 is either poorly expressed or nonfunctional in AcMNPV-infected SL2 cells. These questions were addre...

Aloe vera has been used worldwide both for pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetic industries due to the plethora of biological activities of some of its metabolites. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antifungal and antioxidant activities of the leaf extract. The antifungal activity was determined by the agar-well diffusion method against plant and human fungal pathogens. The methanol and et...