Seeds of the castor plant Ricinus communis are of forensic interest because they are the source of the poison ricin. We tested whether stable isotope ratios of castor seeds and ricin preparations can be used as a forensic signature. We collected over 300 castor seed samples worldwide and measured the C, N, O, and H isotope ratios of the whole seeds and oil. We prepared ricin by three different ...

The present study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of soil amendment with urea coated with nimin (neembased product with neem-triterpenes) and oils of neem, castor, and rocketsalad on the root-knot nematode, Meloidogyne incognita, and plant growth of mung in pots. Soil amendment with urea coated with different doses viz., 0.02g, 0.04g and 0.06g/pot of nimin and oils of neem, castor rocket-...

Persea americana is a plant used by traditional medicine practitioners to treat ailments including diarrhoea and diabetes mellitus in Nigeria. Hence, the chloroform and the methanol fractions of the chloroform-methanol extract of the leaves of P. americana were evaluated for their acute toxicity as well as anti-diarrhoeal effects in Wistar rats to substantiate this claim. The chloroform and met...

BACKGROUND MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenously encoded small RNAs that post-transcriptionally regulate gene expression and play essential roles in numerous developmental and physiological processes. Currently, little information on the transcriptome and tissue-specific expression of miRNAs is available in the model non-edible oilseed crop castor bean (Ricinus communis L.), one of the most impor...

Castor bean and Jatropha contain seed oil of industrial importance, share taxonomical and biochemical similarities, which can be explored for identifying SSRs in the whole genome sequence of castor bean and utilized in Jatropha curcas. Whole genome analysis of castor bean identified 5,80,986 SSRs with a frequency of 1 per 680 bp. Genomic distribution of SSRs revealed that 27% were present in th...

BACKGROUND The allergenicity of Ricinus communis L. (castor bean, Euphorbiaceae) is associated with components of its seeds and pollen. Castor bean allergy has been described not only in laboratory workers, but also in personnel working in oil processing mills, fertilizer retail, the upholstery industry and other industrial fields. In the present study, we describe the critical amino acids in t...

a field experiment was conducted during 2009-2011 at the aligarh muslim university agricultural research farm, india, to evaluate the efficacious nature of some oil-seed cakes such as neem cake and castor cake, a botanical calotropis procera and phosphate solubilizing bacteria (psb) pseudomonas fluorescens singly and in various combinations, on the growth and productivity of trigonella plant. g...

The aim of this research was to study the biodegradation of a polymer derived from castor oil, which is a renewable, natural material that is a practical alternative for the replacement of traditional polyurethane foams. Due to its molecular structure, which contains polyester segments derived from vegetable oil, the polymeric surface is susceptible to microorganism attack. This study tested th...