Plasma membrane vesicles were isolated from homogenates of meristematic and mature soybean root tissue by differential sucrose gradient centrifugation. Vesicles were positively identified by the phosphotungstic acid-chromic acid procedure (PACP). The two preparations were comparable in size class distribution, mitochondrial contamination, and per cent plasma membrane vesicles present. Purity le...

BACKGROUND The problem of resistance of malarial parasites to available antimalarial drugs makes the development of new drugs imperative, with natural plant products providing an alternative source for discovering new drugs. AIM To evaluate the antimalarial activity of eluted fractions of Acacia nilotica root extract and determine the phytochemicals responsible for its antimalarial activity. ...

The metabolic syndrome (MS) is a condition consisting of various metabolic abnormalities that are risk factors for developing kidney failure, cardiovascular, vascular and cerebrovascular diseases, among others. The prevalence of this syndrome shows a marked increase. The aim of this study was to investigate the pharmacological effect of Smilax aristolochiifolia root on some components of MS and...

To investigate the bioavailability and bio-enrichment of metals from soils to vegetables, the concentrations of ni, Pb, zn, and Cu in vegetables and their grown soils sampled from eight suburban areas of nanjing, china, were determined, and the fractions of these metals in soils was characterized by using the bcr sequential extraction procedure. The results showed that the residual fraction was...

BACKGROUND Tangzhiqing fomula (TZQ-F), the mixture of Red Paeony root, Mulberry leaf, Lotus leaf, Danshen root and Hawthorn leaf, regulates the abnormal glucose and lipids in prediabetic patients. In this study, we focus on the mechanism of TZQ-F and its fractions on glucose metabolism. METHODS After orally administration of TZQ-F for 4 weeks in KK-Ay mice, we dissected out the liver and musc...

Mycoremediation is an on-site remediation strategy, which employs fungi to degrade or sequester contaminants from the environment. The present work focused on the bioremediation of soils contaminated with zinc by the use of a native mycorrhizal fungi (AM) called Funneliformis geosporum (Nicol. & Gerd.) Walker & Schüßler. Experiments were performed using Triticum aestivum L. cv. Gemmeza-10 at di...

The solvent partitioned purified fractions of the hydro-acetone root bark extract of the African breadfruit (Treculia africana Decne) were evaluated for hypoglycemic activities in normal and diabetic albino rats. Fasting blood glucose levels were estimated by the use of a glucometer at pre-determined intervals after oral administration of the test extracts/fractions. Results revealed that the t...

1. Introduction. Van der Poorten and Shallit's paper [10] begins: " It is notorious that it is damnably difficult to explicitly compute the continued fraction of a quantity presented in some other form ". The quantity is usually presented either as a power series or as the root of a specific equation. There has been some success in the former case for continued fractions of real numbers, such a...

Roots of a citrus relative, Glycosmis pentaphylla (orangeberry), were shown to inhibit the growth and survival of larvae of the citrus root weevil Diaprepes abbreviatus. Roots of G. pentaphyllaincorporated into the diet of D. abbreviatus increasingly inhibited the growth of neonate larvae with increased concentration of roots, while roots from citrus rootstocks produced little inhibition. The d...

BACKGROUND Toxoplasma gondii infection causes toxoplasmosis, an infectious disease with worldwide prevalence. The limited efficiency of drugs against this infection, their side effects and the potential appearance of resistant strains make the search of novel drugs an essential need. We examined Eurycoma longifolia root extract and fractions as potential sources of new compounds with high activ...