Poly-paraphyly of Hirudinidae: many lineages of medicinal leeches

A new species of Hirudo (Annelida: Hirudinidae): historical biogeography of Eurasian medicinal leeches

Background: Species of Hirudo are used extensively for medicinal purposes, but are currently listed as endangered due to population declines from economic utilization and environmental pollution. In total, five species of Hirudo are currently described throughout Eurasia, with Turkey being one of the major exporters of medicinal leech, primarily H. verbana. Results: To define the distribution o...

Diversity and selective pressures of anticoagulants in three medicinal leeches (Hirudinida: Hirudinidae, Macrobdellidae)

Although medicinal leeches have long been used as treatment for various ailments because of their potent anticoagulation factors, neither the full diversity of salivary components that inhibit coagulation, nor the evolutionary selection acting on them has been thoroughly investigated. Here, we constructed expressed sequence tag libraries from salivary glands of two species of medicinal hirudino...

Aeromonas hydrophila infection associated with the use of medicinal leeches.

The use of medicinal leeches (Hiruda medicinalis) is becoming more common after plastic surgery to control venous congestion of skin grafts. We describe a patient with Aeromonas hydrophila infection whose graft was treated with medicinal leeches. The infection required systemic antibiotic therapy. A. hydrophila is the predominant bacterial flora in the gut of the leech, where it plays an essent...

detection of volatile compounds of medicinal plants with some nano-sorbents using modified or new methodologies and investigation of antioxidant activity of their methanolic extracts

in this work, a novel and fast method for direct analysis of volatile compounds (davc) of medicinal plants has been developed by holding a filament from different parts of a plant in the gc injection port. the extraction and analysis of volatile components of a small amount of plant were carried out in one-step without any sample preparation. after optimization of temperature, extraction time a...

Medicinal leeches (Hirudo medicinalis) attacking and killing adult amphibians