فهرست مطالب زهره زهرائی

Walnut leaf has good antioxidant, antifungal and antimicrobial properties. In this study, a walnut leaf from different regions of Iran was collected and then its extract was analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS). Antimicrobial properties of walnut leaf extract were evaluated by gram-positive bacteria of Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC29737) and Bacillus subtilis (ATCC 6633), gram-negative bacteria of Escherichia coli (ATCC10536) and Candida albicans yeast (ATCC10231) and by some linear multivariate calibration techniques, the peaks potentially responsible for the antimicrobial activity were indicated. The results of these techniques were displayed as regression graphs, which peaks with negative regression coefficients cause antimicrobial properties. Independent component regression was preferred to exhibit the potential antimicrobial active compounds in samples because of simplicity, better interpretation of regression coefficients, and its high repeatability. Finally, High Performance Liquid Chromatography -Mass Spectrometry (HPLC-MS) was used to indicate the structure of chemical components, which were responsible for antimicrobial activity.

The use of medicinal plants has been one of the most common treatments since ancient times. Various plants are used in traditional and modern medicine, due to their antioxidant, antimicrobial and anticancer properties, and other biological potentials.

In this study, the aerial parts of four species of Salvia including two populations of S. reuteriana Boiss., two populations of S. limbata C.A.Mey. and one population of each S. syriaca L. and S. ceratophylla L. species from Kashan region have been investigated.

The antioxidative activity of the methanol extracts of plant samples were evaluated using the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method. The total phenol and flavonoid contents were determined via the Folin-Ciocalteu and aluminum chloride methods, respectively. The cytotoxic effects of samples on HeLa cells were determined through MTT assay.

Based on the results of DPPH assay, IC50 levels of methanolic extracts were in the range of 39.08 ± 0.15 to 163.77 ± 0.63 μg/ml, and total phenol contents were in the range of
42.7 ± 3.09 to 105.8 ± 1.15 μg/mg. In addition, the flavonoid contents ranged from 30.07 ± 2.52 to 82.46 ± 2.2 μg/mg. There was a direct relationship between antioxidant activity and phenol compound contents. According to our study, the methanolic extracts of Salvia species showed toxicity effects on HeLa cells.

The extracts of two populations of S. reuteriana were associated with the highest cytotoxicity, compared to other species of Salvia. Furthermore, all examined extracts exhibited weak to moderate antioxidant activities. The S. ceratophylla extract was associated with the highest antioxidant activity.

Different species of Salvia genus are used in folk medicine for the prevention and treatment of many diseases due to their active and effective compounds. In this research, the chemical composition of aerial parts essential oil (EO) was studied in four Salvia spp. including S. limbata C. A. Mey. (two populations), S. reuterana Boiss. (two populations), S. syriaca L. (one population) and S. ceratophylla L. (one population) collected from different areas of Kashan in Isfahan province at the flowering stage. Extraction and qualitative analysis of EO were performed using the Clevenger apparatus and Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), respectively. In this study, the EO yield ranged from 0.15 to 0.32 % (w/w). Spathulenol was the major constituent of EO in S. syriaca (16.8%) and S. ceratophylla (27.2%) species. The major compounds of the other two species EO were sclareol in S. reuterana (Maragh (21.2%) and Darreh (11.5%) populations) and β-pinene in S. limbata (Qaza-An (20.4%) and Darreh (13.8%) populations). The quantitative and qualitative EO diversity observed in the studied species and populations can be attributed to different ecological, genetic, geographical, and nutritional factors of their origin. Therefore, for the optimal use of the active constituents of this medicinal plant in pharmaceutical industries, more studies are needed on the different species of this genus in different regions.

Today, due to increased use of chemical drugs and spread of microbial resistance to antibiotics as well as the side effects of drug consumption, the identification and introduction of plant species with medicinal and antimicrobial properties have widely been regarded important. Different species of salvia L. have been used in traditional and modern medicine for therapeutic purposes. In the current study, the antimicrobial activity of the essential oils and methanolic extracts of aerial parts of four species of Salvia contains S. syriaca L. and S. ceratophylla L and two populations of S. reuterana Boiss., and two populations of S. limbata C.A. Mey. from Kashan region, were investigated.

An experimental research was conducted in in vitro conditions. Methanolic extract of samples was prepared using soxhlet apparatus. The essential oils were extracted using hydrodistillation using Clevenger method. Antimicrobial activity of this species was investigated using the Agar well diffusion technique and MIC and MBC tests.

The essential oils and methanolic extracts of these sample plants showed antimicrobial activity against Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, and Staphylococcus epidermidis in 30 mg/ml. In addition, extract of S. reuterana and essential oil of S. limbata from Dorreh inhibit the growth of Candida albicans.

It seems that considering the antimicrobial properties of some of the extracts and essential oils observed in the current study, they can be used as substitutions for the current antibiotics after more extensive graduate studies are performed.

Caffeine is one of most important ligand of adenosine deaminase (ADA). In the present study, changes in adenosine deaminase activity were measured in Tris-HCl buffer 50mM, pH 7.3 at 37oC in the presence and absence of caffeine in increasing concentrations of adenosine as a substrate (0-50µM) and in various incubation times with caffeine. Regarding the analysis of the saturation curves, for the first time, their sigmoidal shape shows considerable differences with previous reports which can be referred to differences in concentration range of substrate and incubation time with caffeine. Based on the sigmoidal shape of saturation curve, mechanism of caffeine effect is explainable.  Moreover, based on finding of this study, the effect of caffeine on ADA activity is a function of incubation time and will be stable after 6 hours incubation of enzyme with caffeine. This is noteworthy when interpreting the results of the studies on ADA and its ligands.

The dyes are high usage chemical compounds in textile industry. Discharge of colored effluent to the water sources, effect on the unpleasant appearance and the solubility of gases. The dyes reduce light penetration to the lower layers of water and photosynthetic activity. They caused cancers and variety of mutations. In this research, the decolorization ability of Reactive Red 152 dye by isolated strains from textile wastewater was measured, also environmental conditions were optimized. In this experimental study, the bacterial strains were isolated from samples collected from different parts of textile wastewater. The dye decolorizing bacteria were screened. The decolorization ability of the strains was evaluated under different conditions such as incubation time from 0 to 72 hours, pH 6 to 9, different dye concentrations from 50 to 400mg/l and different carbon sources. Ten strains were isolated from Kashan textile wastewater that 4 strains showed high ability in decolorization. The highest decolorization was observed after 48 hours, pH=9, 50mg/l concentration of dye and glucose as carbon source. Textile wastewater contains bacterial strains which have high decolorization ability. Therefore, we can use these bacteria for decolorization of wastewater dyes.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in woman. The frequency of amplification of some proto-oncogenes like c-Myc gene may be various in different populations. In this study, amplification of c-Myc oncogene was determined in breast cancer patients and its correlation with prognostic factors such as age, tumor size, tumor stage, grade of the disease, lymph node involvement, HER/2 protein expression, estrogen and progesterone receptors and recurrence was also investigated.
In this study, to determine the amplification of c-Myc oncogenes in breast cancer patients, the multiplex PCR technique was used. After extracting DNA from 100 tumor tissue and 8 normal breast tissue samples, amplification of c-Myc gene was determined by coamplification of a single-copy reference gene, g-IFN, and the target gene c-myc in PCR reaction and using the Gel analyzer software. In the next step, the correlation of the amplification of this gene with other prognostic factors was investigated.
In this study, amplification of the c-Myc gene was observed in 27% of the tumor samples. The statistic analysis showed that amplification of the c-Myc oncogene was significantly associated with the recurrence of breast cancer. There was no significant correlation between amplification of the c-Myc oncogene and other prognostic factors including age, estrogen and progesterone receptors, lymph node involvement, HER/2 expression, tumor size, stage and grade of the disease.
Amplification of the c-Myc gene can be used as an independent prognostic factor in predicting the recurrence in breast cancer patients.

Lipid transfer proteins (LTPs) are a family group of proteins with low average molecular weight in plants that have numerous potential applications especially in drug delivery systems. The aim of this research was cloning of LTP coding sequence in a prokaryotic expression vector to produce a fusion protein with GST in E. coli (TOP10). As there is no intron segment in rice LTP2 gene، specific primers were implemented to introduce BamHI and XhoI restriction sites at the head and tail of amplified LTP2 coding sequence respectively، using extracted rice genome as a template. After treatment by respected restriction endonucleases، the amplified fragment was inserted into the BamHI-XhoI sites in pGEX-6p-2 vector downstream of GST to make a chimeric DNA for further production of GST-LTP fusion protein. At the next step recombinant vector was transformed into TOP10 E. coli cells for amplifying purposes. To ensure the accuracy of gene cloning، extracted recombinant vector were sent for sequencing the inserted fragment. Data revealed that cloned fragment was bona fide sequence of rice LTP2 as was reported to NCBI. Results showed that PCR amplification of GC-rich DNA sequences could be improved by Betaine، DMSO and AMS. Finally expression of LTP2 in E. coli was confirmed by SDS-PAGE technique.

LTP gene encodes lipid transfer protein in plants. LTP gene is rich for GC bases. Thus, designated primers may form secondary structures in the annealing step of PCR and cannot bind to the template appropriately. This may results in undesired product. Substances such as Betaine, Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) and Ammonium Sulfate (AMS) can solve this problem. In this study, different gradients of each material were used in the PCR reaction. Ultimately, the optimum concentration was obtained for these materials. Among them, 4.5μl betaine (5M), 2.25μl DMSO (10%) and 2.25 μl AMS in 25μl of PCR mixture were reported to be optimal concentrations.