A procedure allowing hydrolysis reactions to be conducted in a dynamic supercritical-CO2 medium was developed for quantifying total safranal (viz. free safranal present in the sample+safranal resulting from picrocrocin hydrolysis), which are the main component of the essential oil and responsible for the characteristic aroma of saffron. The proposed method allows total safranal amounts over the...

Inhibitors of acetylcholine breakdown by acetylcholinesterase (AChE) constitute the main therapeutic modality for Alzheimer's disease. In the search for natural products with inhibitory action on AChE, this study investigated the activity of saffron extract and its constituents by in vitro enzymatic and molecular docking studies. Saffron has been used in traditional medicine against Alzheimer's...

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a retinal neurodegenerative disease whose development and progression are the results of a complex interaction between genetic and environmental risk factors. Both oxidative stress and chronic inflammation play a significant role in the pathogenesis of AMD. Experimental studies in rats with light-induced photoreceptors degeneration demonstrated that saf...

There are several reasons why this book might be of interest to a TEX user. First, LTEX has a prominent place in the book. Second, the book describes a very interesting offshoot of literate programming, a topic traditionally popular in the TEX community. Third, since a number of TEX users work with data analysis and statistics, R could be a useful tool for them. Since some TUGboat readers are l...

Four petals characterize the flowers of most species in the Brassicaceae family, and this phenotype is generally robust to genetic and environmental variation. A variable petal number distinguishes the flowers of Cardamine hirsuta from those of its close relative Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), and allelic variation at many loci contribute to this trait. However, it is less clear whether C....

The onset and progression of petal senescence, which is a type of programmed cell death (PCD), are highly regulated. Genes showing changes in expression during petal senescence in Japanese morning glory (Ipomoea nil) were isolated and examined to elucidate their function in PCD. We show here that a putative membrane protein, InPSR26, regulates progression of PCD during petal senescence in Japan...

The Arabidopsis petal is a simple laminar organ whose development is largely impervious to environmental effects, making it an excellent model for dissecting the regulation of cell-cycle progression and post-mitotic cell expansion that together sculpt organ form. Arabidopsis petals grow via basipetal waves of cell division, followed by a phase of cell expansion. RABBIT EARS (RBE) encodes a C2H2...

Petal tissue comprises several different cell types, which have specialised functions in pollination in different flowering plant species. In Antirrhinum majus, the MIXTA protein directs the formation of conical epidermal cells in petals. Transgenic experiments have indicated that MIXTA activity can also initiate trichome development, dependent on the developmental timing of its expression. MIX...

PURPOSE To test whether the saffron extract (Crocus sativus L.) given as a dietary supplement counteracts the effects of continuous light exposure in the albino rat retina. METHODS Three experimental groups of Sprague-Dawley rats were used. Experimental animals were prefed either saffron or beta-carotene (1 mg extract/kg/d) before they were exposed to bright continuous light (BCL) for 24 hour...