Pteris tripartita Sw. has been collected from Alazhar hills of Madurai District, Tamil Nadu is reported for the first time from Eastern Ghats. The detailed description and colour photograph is provided to facilitate for easy identification.
Keywords: Pteris tripartita Sw; Eastern Ghats; Alazhar hills,Tamil Nadu
Pteris tripartita Sw. A New Record for Eastern Ghats
A.Benniamin
Engineered plasmid DNA vaccine for Staphylococcus aureus
M.Muruganandam
Antibacterial Potential of some medicinal plants
Ashok K. Jaina and Sujata Gautam
Cocktail Plasmid DNA Vaccine for Common Food Borne Disease
M.Muruganandam
Volume No 2(1) April, 15,2011
Table and Contents
Volatile Oils of Ocimum species from South India
R. Caroline Jeba and Rama Vaidyanathan
Folk uses of some medicinal plants by Kol tribes of Similipal Biosphere Reserve,
Orissa, India
S.K. Panda, S.D. Rout , N.Mishra and T. Panda
RAPD Analysis of Genetic Variability in Wild Populations of Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal
K. Dharmar and A. John De Britto
Novel expression system for the Large scale Production of Recombinant Human B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) for therapeutic purpose
Our previous study shows that, plasmid DNA vaccines are one of the best vaccines. So in this attempt, try to develop a common plasmid DNA vaccine for Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi and Escherichia coli. In this experiment, four treatments were tested and one control treatment was also used. In the first treatment, plasmid DNA was collected from Salmonella typhi, Escherichia coli, and Staphylococcus aureus. These plasmid DNA was mixed well and deliver through intramuscular injection. In the second treatment, all the plasmid DNA were isolated and digested by BamH-I enzyme and mixed well then these digested plasmid DNA was used as vaccine. In the third treatment, all the plasmid DNA were isolated from the pathogens and digested by Pst-I enzyme and these also mixed well and used as vaccine. In the fourth treatment, all plasmids were double digested by BamH-I and Pst-I enzymes and used as vaccines. The maximum immune response was observed in double digested treatment compared to other treatments. So, it is concluded that it is best for develop a cocktail vaccine for all these disease.
Five medicinal plant species, Abrus precatorius (Fabaceae), Amaranthus spinosus (Amaranthaceae), Argyeria nervosa (Convolvulaceae), Vernonia cinerea (Asteraceae), Zizyphus nummularia (Rhamnaceae) were screened for potential of antibacterial activity against four medically important human pathogen namely Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogene, Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The antibacterial activity of aqueous and ethanol extracts were determined by agar disc diffusion method. The ethanol extracts was more active than the aqueous extract for all five plants studied. The most susceptible bacteria were Staphylococcus aureus, followed by Bacillus subtilis.
Key words: Medicinal plants, antibacterial activity, agar disc diffusion method.
Plasmid DNA has wide variety of applications in vaccine research. Here it is modified and used as vaccines. First plasmid DNA was isolated from Staphylococcus aureus and engineered by various restriction enzymes. In this work, two experiments were carried out. In the first experiment, plasmid DNA was isolated and digested individually by five restriction enzymes such as EcoR-I, HindIII, Pst-I, BamH-I, and Hae- III. Then digested plasmid DNA was used as vaccines. In the second experiment, isolated plasmid DNA was double digested by these enzymes and used as vaccines. Albino rats were used as test animal in all the treatments. In the first experiment, maximum immune response was observed in Pst-I and Hae-III digested treatment. In the second experiment, maximum immune response was observed in EcoR-I + Hind-III and Hind-III + BamH-I digested treatments. So it is concluded that, double digested treatments are highly suitable for develop plasmid DNA vaccine for Staphylococcus aureus.
The essential oils of Ocimum santum and O. basilicum were obtained from a Clevenger apparatus distilled for 3hr. Both essential oil of O. santum and O. basilicum were analyzed by GC and GC-MS. The yield of the essential oil obtained from Ocimum santum (1.45% w/w) and O. bascillum (0.98% w/w). Methyl eugenol and eugenol were found to be major constituents of both fresh leaves of O. santum and O. basilicum.
Similpal Biosphere Reserve of Mayurbhanj, a hilly district of Odisha, India, is rich in ethno medicinal plants. This paper provides information on potential ethnomedicinal value of plant crude drugs for various diseases commonly used by the Kol tribes residing in and around Similipal Biosphere Reserve of the area surveyed. It is primarily based on field surveys carried out in villages, where dwellers provided information on plant species used as medicine, parts used to prepare the remedies, and the illnesses to which the remedies were prescribed. The plant parts, viz. leaf, bark, seed, root, tuber, fruit and whole plant were used in raw or cooked forms for the treatment of piles, skin disease, fever, dysentery etc. The species used as medicinal drug comprise 19 plant species belonging to 17 families. These phytotherapeutical resources were used for the cure of 18 illnesses. Due to poor condition of modern healthcare facilities and poverty, indigenous people of the district fully or partially depend on local medicinal plants.
Key words: Similipal Biosphere Reserve, folk uses, Odisha, traditional knowledge, tribal community
Withania somnifera is extensively used as herbal medicine, because it contains clinically important compounds. In the present study, the genetic variability in W. somnifera among accessions of different geographical region in Tamil Nadu was assessed through Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers. Five accessions of W. somnifera were screened with ten primers of which six primers were found to be the most informative. These primers produced multiple band profiles with a number of amplified DNA fragments varying from 5 to 9. A total of 37 polymorphic bands were observed. The genetic distance between the population ranged from 0.2436 to 0.4754 and the genetic identity ranged from 0.6216 to 0.7838. The overall observed and effective number of alleles was about 1.6216 and 1.4271 respectively. Nei’s over all genetic diversity is 0.2465. The degree of percentage of polymorphism (83.78 %) was found to be high in accession collected from Samykoundanpalayam in Tirupur District, Tamil Nadu. The information obtained here could be valuable for devising strategies for conservation this medicinal plant.
Human brain natriuretic peptide (hBNP) is a 32 amino acid peptide, which has been used in the treatment for congestive heart failure. hBNP is expressed as a novel fusion protein which comprises of the N-terminal portion of growth hormone, to overcome proteolysis during its expression in host cells. The GH-hBNP fusion protein was expressed in the form of inclusion bodies with an expression of around 25%.The fermentation process in large scale was optimized to yield 10g dry cell mass per liter of culture. rhBNP was purified by solubilization of inclusion bodies, cleavage and subsequent purification of peptide by reverse phase chromatography. The final purity of the rhBNP was more than 99% and the yield of rhBNP peptide was over 200 mg per liter of culture. The purified rhBNP was confirmed by mass spectrometry, N-terminal amino-acid sequence and by its biological activity.
Keywords: cGMPassay; Peptide purification; Protein expression; Recombinant human BNP; Reversed phase chromatography
