Previous molecular phylogenetic studies have recovered conflicting hypotheses of relationship among Juniperus (J), Cupressus (C), and Hesperocyparis-Callitropsis-Xanthocyparis (HCX). Conflict between nuclear genes, chloroplast genes, and nuclear and chloroplast data have all been realized in recovering all possible topologies among the three clades. In this study, we use 2.2 kb of aligned seque...

Castor (Ricinus communis L.) is an important non-edible oilseed crop of Euphorbiaceae family. Castor has enormous significance in the country as it plays an important role in the agricultural economies because it enables them to earn substantial foreign exchange through export of castor beans and oils. It is believed that castor is indigenous to the southeastern Mediterranean Basin, Eastern Afr...

Extracts from natural plants have been used in traditional medicine for many centuries worldwide. Artocarpus communis is one such plant that has been used to treat liver cirrhosis, hypertension, and diabetes. To our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the antihepatoma activity of A. communis toward HepG2 and PLC/PRF/5 cells and the first to explore the relationship between antihep...

For nearly three decades, a fundamental objective in the study of plant–herbivore interactions has been to understand why the consumption of a single plant species is rare in mammals, as only a handful of mammalian herbivores (b1%) are dietary specialists. Here, we provide an overview of various factors that may play a role in limiting dietary specialization. We review the energetic consequence...

α-Synuclein (α-Syn) fibrillation links with Parkinson's disease (PD) and several related syndromes. It is believed that exposure to the factors which promote fibrillation may induce and progress such neurodegenerative diseases (NDs). Herein, the effects of some wildly used essential oils including Myrtus communis (M. communis) on α-Syn fibrillation were examined. M. communis particularly increa...