Characteristic rapid death of pines after infection by Bursaphelenchus xylophilus suggests the involvement of phytotoxins in the pine wilt disease syndrome. Crude extract from diseased pine is toxic to pine seedlings, whereas an extract from healthy pine is not. The response of seedlings to the crude toxin is more prominent in susceptible pine species than in resistant ones. Benzoic acid, catec...

the essential oil of peucedanum ru t h e n i c u m fruits, obtained by hydrodistillation, was analyzed by gas chromatography and gas chromatography mass spectrometry. among the 31 identified constituents accounting for 83.9% of the total oil, the major components were 1,8-cineole (11.15%), camphor (5.86%), z-carveol (6.88%), l-carvone (5.61%), 8,9-dehydroisolongifolene (11.35%), caryophyllene o...

The ability of four squirrel monkeys and three pigtail macaques to distinguish between nine enantiomeric odor pairs sharing an isopropenyl group at the chiral center was investigated in terms of a conditioning paradigm. All animals from both species were able to discriminate between the optical isomers of limonene, carvone, dihydrocarvone, dihydrocarveole and dihydrocarvyl acetate, whereas they...

The recognition of odorants by olfactory receptors represents the first stage in odor discrimination. Here, we report the generation of an expression library containing a large and diverse repertoire of mouse olfactory receptor sequences in the transmembrane II-VII region. From this library, 80 chimeric receptors were tested against 26 odorants after transfection into HEK-293 cells. Three recep...

BACKGROUND In aromatherapy, essential oils are used as anti-inflammatory remedies, but experimental studies on their action mechanisms are very limited. AIMS To assess their anti-inflammatory activities, effects of essential oils on neutrophil activation were examined in vitro. METHODS Neutrophil activation was measured by tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha)-induced adherence reaction o...

Introduction Ibuprofen is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAI) from the family of the arylpropionic acids (Lombardino, 1985). Despite ibuprofen continues to be marketed as racemate, it has been demonstrated that only the (S)enantiomer is responsible for the desired therapeutic effects (Adams et al., 1976). (R)Enantiomer shows some risk of toxicity due to be stored into adipose tissue a...

Spearmint has one major monoterpene, (-)-carvone, that constitutes up to 90% of all the monoterpenes present. Likewise, the major phenylpropanoid-rosmarinic acid-in spearmint accounts for up to 70% of the phenylpropanoids produced from the plant. These two compounds are each produced by separate distinct biosynthetic pathways which provide an excellent opportunity to study the influence of a wi...