• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• 제18권2호
• /
• pp.299-307
• /
• 2008

Soybean seed ferritin is essential for human iron supplementation and iron deficiency anemia prevention because it contains abundant bioavailable iron and is frequently consumed in the human diet. However, it is poorly understood in regards its several properties, such as iron mineralization, subunit assembly, and protein folding. To address these issues, we decided to prepare the soybean seed ferritin complex via a recombinant DNA approach. In this paper, we report a rapid and simple Escherichia coli expression system to produce the soybean seed ferritin complex. In this system, two subunits of soybean seed ferritin, H-2 and H-1, were encoded in a single plasmid, and optimal expression was achieved by additionally coexpressing a team of molecular chaperones, trigger factor and GroEL-GroES. The His-tagged ferritin complex was purified by $Ni^{2+}$ affinity chromatography, and an intact ferritin complex was obtained following His-tagged enterokinase (His-EK) digestion. The purified ferritin complex synthesized in E. coli demonstrated some reported features of its native counterpart from soybean seed, including an apparent molecular weight, multimeric assembly, and iron uptake activity. We believe that the strategy described in this paper may be of general utility in producing other recombinant plant ferritins built up from two types of subunits.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
• /
• 제6권2호
• /
• pp.197-203
• /
• 1993

The protection of dry matter and nitrogen from rumen degradation of dhaincha seed (Sesbania aculeate) meal was studied using nylon bag technique. The dhaincha seed meal was subjected to various heat treatments that included oven drying, autoclaving and boiling. Similar experiment was conducted with fish meal as reference for comparison. The oven-dried dhaincha meal was found to retain more dry matter and nitrogen than was found boiled or autoclaved meal. While autoclaving appeared to improve nitrogen and dry matter retention to some extent, boiling seemed to cause more loss of dry matter from nylon bag. Heat treatment caused high retention of nitrogen by fish meal. The calculated effective protein degradation was 80.4% and 83.2% for the oven dried fish meal and dhaincha seed meal whereas same values were 74.2% and 86.7% for autoclaved fish and dhaincha seed meal respectively at the outflow rate of 4.4% per hour. The in vitro study revealed higher digestibility for heat treated samples by pepsin. The dry matter, nitrogen and ash content of dhaincha seed meal were 85.93%, 5.93% and 7.31% respectively.

• International Journal of Oral Biology
• /
• 제43권1호
• /
• pp.37-42
• /
• 2018

It is noted that Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) triggers dental caries establishment by two major factors: the synthesis of organic acids, which demineralize dental enamel, and the synthesis of glucans, which mediate the attachment of bacteria to the tooth surface. Therefore, it is noted that the development of a more effective, substantial and safe preventive agent that works against dental caries and periodontal disease is required at this time. For this reason, the present study was designed to investigate the effect of croton seed ethanol extracts on the growth, acid production, adhesion, and insoluble glucan synthesis of S. mutans. In this case, the ethanol extract of croton seed showed concentration dependent inhibitory activity against the growth, acid production and adhesion of S. mutans. Especially, it is important to note that it has produced significant inhibition at the concentration of 0.1 and 0.2 mg/ml as compared to the control group. Moreover, these results suggest that the application of croton seed extract may be considered to be a useful method for the prevention of dental caries.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
• /
• 제21권1호
• /
• pp.39-42
• /
• 1997

Dynamic parameters of biochemistry including the contents of soluble carbohydrate (SC) , crude fat (CF) , fatty arid (FA) and soluble protein (SP) in American send (Panax qufnquelolium L.) seed are reported in the present paper. When embryo ratio (ER) increased from 7.31 to 20.48%, the SC content decreased from 4.08 to 1.16%. After that, SC content changed little. The CF content decreased successively from 34.50 to 14.40% from the beginning to the end during the embryo afterripening. The changes of FA content did not correlate with that of ER and the changing range of SP content was not large during the seed stratification. All of these may provide some information for understanding the dormancy mechanisms of American seng seed.

• Advances in Traditional Medicine
• /
• 제3권3호
• /
• pp.129-132
• /
• 2003

The hypoglycemic and hypolipidaemic effects of fenugreek seeds (Trigonella foenum graecum) are well established. Owing to the wide spread use of the seeds by healthy individuals and by diabetic patients we wanted to test whether the seeds can affect biological systems such as membrane transport function. In the present study fenugreek seed polyphenols were extracted and their effect on erythrocyte membrane-bound sodium-potassium adenosine triphosphatase $(Na^+/K^+-ATPase)$ activity was studied in vitro. Fenugreek seed polyphenols inhibited $Na^+/K^+-ATPase$ in erythrocyte membrane of diabetic and normal subjects. Maximum inhibition was observed at $100\;{\mu}l$ of extract containing 0.75 mM gallic acid equivalents. The uncoupling of membrane ATPases in vitro suggest that polyphenols from fenugreek seeds may possess a positive inotropic effect.

• Advances in Traditional Medicine
• /
• 제7권2호
• /
• pp.141-149
• /
• 2007

Madhuca indica has been used ethnomedically in Indian folks. In the present study we have investigated anti-inflammatory, anti-ulcer and hypoglycaemic effect of ethanolic extract (EE) and crude alkaloid extract of Madhuca indica seed cake on albino rats. The study showed that the EE had a significant, dose dependent anti-edematogenic, anti-ulcerogenic and hypoglycaemic activity, whereas the crude alkaloid extract exhibited a significant only. Both the extracts possess dose dependent inhibitory activity on carrageenan-induced edema, inhibiting prostaglandins or mediators involved in prostaglandin synthesis, the second phase of inflammation. The EE was significantly effective in protecting pylorus-ligation-induced gastric ulcers at a higher dose level. The active principle of EE seems to be a selective inhibitor of the COX II (prostaglandin synthesis) without important effect on COX I since, EE exhibited both anti-edematogenic and anti-ulcerogenic effect. The EE was effective in reducing the plasma glucose level in normal albino rats in a dose dependent manner, producing hypoglycaemic effect by stimulating the release of insulin from the ${\beta}-cells$ and/or increasing the uptake of glucose from the plasma.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
• /
• 제21권1호
• /
• pp.43-48
• /
• 1997

Dynamic parameters of biochemistry including the POD (peroxidase) activity, contents of DNA and RNA, isozymes of POD and ES (esterase) in American send (Panax quinquefolium L.) seed are reported in the present paper. The dynamic changes of POD activity proved that the PAS (physiological afterripening stage) is a stage in which some substances are prepared for seed germination. The POD activity correlated with ER (embryo ratio) significantly DNA content changed little only within 0.0036∼0.013 mg/ml, which did not correlate with ER. RNA content changed from 0.1539 to 1.0313 mg/ml and correlated significantly with RE during all of the embryo afterripening. None of the POD isozyme band was obtained in ESGS (embryo slowly growth stage), but five bands in ERGS (embryo rapidly growth stage) and six bands in PAS. Four bands of ES isozymes were obtained in ESGS, but six bands in ERGS, particularly, the content of ES isozymes increased in PAS. All of these may provide some information for understanding the dormancy mechanisms of American song seed.

• Advances in Traditional Medicine
• /
• 제10권2호
• /
• pp.103-110
• /
• 2010

The seed powder of Abrus precatorius L. has traditionally been used as oral contraceptive agent by the women in some rural areas in Bangladesh. The present study aimed to examine the antifertility activity of A. precatorius seed extracts in experimental female rats. Finely ground seeds were extracted with aqueous acetone followed by successive partitioning with n-hexane, ethyl acetate (EtOAc), methanol (MeOH) and water. Water suspended crude seed powder, organic fractions of acetone extract and a standard contraceptive drug ($Nordette^{(R)}28$) were separately administered orally to the female rats for 30 days. n-Hexane, EtOAc and MeOH solubles at the doses of 2, 4 and 6 mg/rat/day, respectively and crude seed powder at 100 mg/rat/day exhibited 100% antifertility activity with lowest levels of serum luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and $17{\beta}$-estradiol. Histological study of ovary and uterus of these rats exhibited reduced number of developing follicles and increased number of atretic follicles in the ovary, and fewer uterine glands with shrunken morphology, reduced endometrial height, poor vascularity and compact stroma in uterus. However, the activities of serum glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase and serum glutamate pyruvate transaminase and the body weight of the rats remained almost unaffected in all the seed extract treated rats compared to control. These results suggest that A. precatorius seed extracts reduced the levels of serum FSH, LH and $17{\beta}$-estradiol probably by affecting hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. The reduced levels of these hormones might have affected the oestrous cycle, follicular development, and subsequently the establishment of pregnancy in treated rats.

• Advances in Traditional Medicine
• /
• 제5권4호
• /
• pp.308-315
• /
• 2005

Aflatoxin contamination is a major problem in several food crops. Aflatoxin, a mycotoxin, produced by Aspergillus flavus has gained immense concern in the scientific world because of its tremendous harmful effects. The study was focused to see the effect of oil and aqueous extract of neem (Azadirachta indica) seeds on the growth of Aspergillus and production of aflatoxin by the mold. Various amounts of neem oil $(5\;-\;50\;{\mu}l/ml)$ and aqueous extract of neem (5 - 50 mg/ml) were used both in the broth as well as the solid medium. Fungistatic (MIC) and minimal fungicidal concentrations (MFC) were found to be $10\;{\mu}l/ml$ and $50\;{\mu}l/ml$ respectively for neem seed oil. At the concentration of $5\;{\mu}l/ml$ neem oil and 5 mg/ml of aqueous extract, a significant decrease in the aflatoxin content was found in broth medium. Aflatoxin production was totally inhibited at $50\;{\mu}l/ml$ and 50 mg/ml for neem oil and aqueous extract of neem respectively, in both treatments. There was significant inhibition of mycelium dry weight by the neem seed oil. Mycelial growth was totally inhibited at $20\;{\mu}l/ml$ of neem seed oil concentration in broth, whereas it was not affected at all by aqueous extract. It can therefore be inferred that the oil and extract from the neem seed leads to inhibition of aflatoxin production while neem seed oil also significantly inhibits the mycelial growth. Neem seed oil thus can be used as potent, natural and easily available anti-aflatoxigenic agent.

• BMB Reports
• /
• 제37권6호
• /
• pp.715-719
• /
• 2004

The fate of Telfairia occidentalis seed Agglutinin, TOA, has been monitored during germination. While the level of the Agglutinin in the cotyledons decreased sharply in the first three days to about half of the initial level, it stabilises at this level for the following twelve days. In this interval, Agglutinin activity becomes manifest in the radicle on the fourth day, peaking on the fifth and decreasing rapidly thereafter. In the plumule, the lectin activity becomes manifest on the sixth day, peaks on the seventh and decreases rapidly thereafter. No lectin activity is detectable in any plant tissue including the rump of the cotyledons twenty-seven days after germination. The implications of these observations on the possible role of lectins in plants are discussed.