m. vazirian

Arum rupicola Boiss. (Araceae Family) is used by the native people of southern areas of Iran as a soup called "kardeh soup". Several flavonoids and phenol compounds have been identified from Arum species.

The aim of this study was to evaluate antioxidant effect and total phenol contents as well as cytotoxic activity of the leaves of A. rupicola.

Antioxidant activity of total methanol extract and fractions including n-hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate and water residue were evaluated using FRAP and DPPH methods. Total phenol content was measured using Folin-Ciocalteu method. Cytotoxic activity of the extract and fractions were investigated against human breast cancer MCF-7, MDA-MB-231, and T47D cell lines by MTT assay. Further phytochemical isolation was done on the water residue using column chromatography.

According to the results, water residue showed the lowest IC50 value (186.7 µg/ml) and the total methanol extract showed the most antioxidant power (163.62 mmol FeSO4/100 g extract) and phenol content (135 µmol Gallic acid/g extract). The hexane fraction also showed the highest cytotoxic effect against MCF-7 breast cancer cell line with IC50 equal to 118.9 μg/ml. Phytochemical analysis of the water residue resulted in isolation and identification of three isoflavonoids named orobol, genistein and genistein 8-c-glucoside.

Based on the identification of isoflavonoid compounds in this plant, its ability to be used as a phytoestrogenic supplement can be considered in future studies.

Trachyspermum ammi is one of the prominent plant in traditional medicine of the east with several medicinal effects such as improvement of stomach disease, digestive disorder, diarrhea, hemorrhoid, bladder stones, respiratory disease and etc. Medicinal plants is one of the important reason of toxicity particularly in children and the elderly therefore, evaluation of the toxic effects of a plant is important. The aim of present study was evaluation of toxicity of ajowan oil in experimental animals. Initially, essential oil of the plant fruit was extracted to study the acute toxicity to rats by gavage. The animals were treated with 1000 mg/kg of the essential oil for 23 and 45 days to determine chronic. Hematological and biochemical parameters of rats’ blood samples were collected and spleen, kidney, liver and lung of rats were isolated for histopathologic examination. According to acute studies result lethal dose, 50% (LD50) of ajowan essential oil was about 2294 mg/kg. Chronic evaluation showed that there is no statistical difference between weight, food and water consumption of test and control groups. Further, tissue analysis showed no serious change in examined tissues in the treated rats. Finally according to results, no chemical parameters of blood and histological pattern of tissue were affected by T. ammi oil; however the oil could be classified as moderately toxic due to its LD50 value.

Pterocarya fraxinifolia Lam. is a deciduous, fast-growing tree from walnut family. The stem barks and fruits of the plant have been used as diaphoretic in traditional medicine. Variation in the quantity and quality of the essential oil and extract of stems of the plant at different developmental stages was evaluated in addition to assessing the antimicrobial, cytotoxic and radical scavenging activities in the present study.

Different developmental stages of the plant’s stem (i.e. vegetative, flowering, immature fruit and mature fruit) were subjected to hydro-distillation for obtaining the essential oil. The methanol extract of the samples was obtained by Soxhlet apparatus. Chemical composition of the oils was analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy (GC/MS). Antimicrobial activity of the oils and extracts were determined against three Gram-positive and five Gram-negative bacteria and two fungi by disc diffusion method. Antioxidant activity of the samples was evaluated by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and β-carotene assays. Total phenolics content of extracts was determined using Folin-Ciocalteau reagent and cytotoxic effect was determined by brine shrimp lethality bioassay.

Hexadecanoic acid was one of the major components in all essential oil samples. All samples showed good antimicrobial activity against tested strains. Antioxidant activity of the extracts was comparable to the synthetic standard (butylated hydroxytoluene). The highest total phenolic content and cytotoxic effect were detected for the mature fruit stage of the plant extract and essential oil, respectively.

Showing considerable antioxidant and cytotoxic effects, suggested the plant as a good candidate for further investigations.

Food poisoning has been always a major concern in health system of every community and cream-filled products are one of the most widespread food poisoning causes in humans. In present study, we examined the preservative effect of the cinnamon oil in cream-filled cakes.

Antimicrobial activity of Cinnamomum verum J. Presl (Cinnamon) bark essential oil was examined against five food-borne pathogens (Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Candida albicans, Bacillus cereus and Salmonella typhimurium) to investigate its potential for use as a natural preservative in cream-filled baked goods. Chemical constituents of the oil were determined by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. For evaluation of preservative sufficiency of the oil, pathogens were added to cream-filled cakes manually and 1 μL/mL of the essential oil was added to all samples except the blank. 

Chemical constituents of the oil were determined by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and twenty five components were identified where cinnamaldehyde (79.73%), linalool (4.08%), cinnamaldehyde para-methoxy (2.66%), eugenol (2.37%) and trans-caryophyllene (2.05%) were the major constituents. Cinnamon essential oil showed strong antimicrobial activity against selected pathogens in vitro and the minimum inhibitory concentration values against all tested microorganisms were determined as 0.5 μL/disc except for S. aureus for which, the oil was not effective in tested concentrations. After baking, no observable microorganism was observed in all susceptible microorganisms count in 72h stored samples.  

It was concluded that by analysing the sensory quality of the preserved food, cinnamon oil may be considered as a natural preservative in food industry, especially for cream-filled cakes and pastries.

Essential oils are very complex mixture of components and their composition may vary in different species or varieties or even within the same variety. Origanum vulgare L. subsp. vulgare is one of the most distributed subspecies within the genus Origanum and has been found to be a poor-oil, categorized in cymyl, bornane or sabinyl chemotypes with higher proportion of sesquiterpenes. In this experiment, the Iranian sample was studied for the chemical composition of the oil and evaluation of its antioxidant activity.

Essential oil was obtained by hydro-distillation and analyzed by GC/MS for determination of components. Antioxidant activity was evaluated by radical scavenging ability (DPPH method) and reducing power (FRAP assay).

The sample belonged to “thymol” chemotype with the main components as thymol (37.13%), gama-terpinene (9.67%), carvacrol (9.57%), carvacrol methyl ether (6.88), cis-alpha-bisabolene (6.80%), eucalyptol (3.82%), p-cymene (3.58%) and elemol (2.04%). The oil of plant showed very strong antioxidant activity (IC50=2.5 µg/mL in DPPH method), which was stronger than the standard antioxidants (Vit E and BHA, p<0.05) and it demonstrated good reducing power (467.25 μmole Eq FeSO4.7H2O/mg of the oil in FRAP assay).

The data suggests the plant as a good potential natural antioxidant preservative.

The genus Stachys belongs to Lamiaceae family with about 300 species and worldwide distribution. In the present study, the cytotoxic activity of four fractions of different Satchys species (S. byzatina C. Koch., S. inflata Benth., S. setifera Ten. and S. persica Gmel.), has been investigated against HT-29 (colon carcinoma), Caco-2 (colorectal adenocarcinoma), T-47D (breast ductal carcinoma) and NIH-3T3 (Swiss mouse embryo fibroblast) cell lines by MTT test. The samples were extracted by percolation method with four solvents; petroleum ether (60-80 ºC), chloroform, ethyl acetate and 80% aqueous methanol, susseccively. All cell lines were cultured in proper medium. Concentrations of 62.5-750 μg/mL from partition fractions of all samples, dissolved in 1% (v/v) DMSO were tested on each cell line. Cells with no treatment and methotrexate were examined as negative and positive controls, respectively. Cell viability was determined by MTT assay. Some fractions showed good cell inhibitory activity with IC50S. setifera was the most cytotoxic sample with high selectivity toward cancerous cell lines, and it could be investigated for its pharmaceutical active components in future studies.

Inflammation is a part of the non-specific immune response which occurs in reaction to any type of injury. Medicinal mushrooms have had application in various disorders including cancer, liver injuries, inflammation and diabetes. In the present study, the anti-inflammatory effects of the aqueous extracts of medicinal mushrooms (Fomes fomentarius, Ganoderma applanatum and Trametes hirsuta) were evaluated using carrageenan method. In addition, total polysaccharide, total phenolics contents and the radical scavenging activity of the extracts have also been examined. Mushrooms were extracted with distilled water in 100 °C for 4 hours and then the extracts were freeze dried. Indomethacin was considered as the positive control in the anti-inflammatory evaluation. Polysaccharide contents of F. fomentarius, G. applanatum, and T. hirsuta extracts were assessed as 53.3±0.2, 31.7±0.03, and 19.1±0.6 glucose equivalent µg/100 µgEXT and total phenolic contents of them were successfully revealed as 9.9±0.2, 8.2±0.1, and 8.8±0.2 µgGAE/100 µgEXT, respectively. Furthermore, the IC50 values for F. fomentarius, G. applanatum, and T. hirsuta extracts in DPPH assay, were calculated as 90.9, 108.6, and 908.3 µg/mL, respectively. The results of the experiment showed that the extracts possessed potent anti-inflammatory effect which was comparable to indomethacin.