The present investigation was carried out to study the relationship between presence of cytotoxic compounds in Ocimum basilicum, Alhagi maurorum, Calendula officinalis and their parasite Cuscuta campestris. The cytotoxic activity of the pure compounds was performed by MTT assay against breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231) and normal breast cell line (MCF 10A). The induction of apopto...

OBJECTIVE Jaundice is the most common reason of newborn's admission to neonatal ward. Many Iranian families give traditional remedies like sugar water, camel's thorn and flixweed extracts to breast-fed babies for reducing jaundice. This study investigated the effect of traditional remedies on idiopathic neonatal jaundice. METHODS This prospective study has been performed on 336 babies with id...

Lotus species are forage legumes with potential as pastures in low-fertility and environmentally constrained soils, owing to their high persistence and yield under those conditions. The aim of this work was the characterization of phenetic and genetic diversity of salt-tolerant bacteria able to establish efficient symbiosis with Lotus spp. A total of 180 isolates able to nodulate Lotus cornicul...

BACKGROUND Traditional herbal medicine is a valuable resource that provides new drugs for cancer treatment. OBJECTIVES In this study we aim to screen and investigate the in vitro anti-tumor activities of ten species of plants commonly grown in Southern Iran. MATERIALS AND METHODS We used the MTT colorimetric assay to evaluate the cytotoxic activities of the methanol extracts of these plants...

Crude aqueous and methanolic extracts of 97 plant species belonging to 35 families collected from the west of Iran were screened for antifungal activity against economically important phytopathogenic fungi, Pythium aphanidermatum. Bioassay of the extracts was conducted by paper disc diffusion method on agar plate cultures with four replications. Seventeen of 97 (17.5%) plant species showed inhi...

Regeneration and gene expression of salt/drought stress tolerant Alhagi graecrum and stress sensitive Lycopersicon esculentum under different concentrations of NaCl and mannitol were studied. Mannitol and NaCl applied at concentrations of 86, 172, 256 and 43, 86, 172 mM, respectively, in a shoot regeneration medium, caused similar water potentials. In L. esculentum, regeneration was influenced ...

BACKGROUND Alhagi sparsifolia is a typical desert phreatophyte and has evolved to withstand extreme dry, cold and hot weather. While A. sparsifolia represents an ideal model to study the molecular mechanism of plant adaption to abiotic stress, no research has been done in this aspect to date. Here we took advantage of Illumina platform to survey transcriptome in primary roots of A. sparsifolia ...