Enhancement of nutraceutical and anti-diabetic potential of fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum). Sprouts with natural elicitors.

Trigonella foenum-graecum has been extensively used for centuries in traditional medicine systems for the cure of health ailments including diabetes. Improving the medicinal attributes of plants through the elicitation strategy is gaining great interest in the recent past. In the current study, an attempt is made to reveal the role and possible mechanism of action of vitamin C elicit phytochemical-rich aqueous extract of 4th day germinated IM6 genotype fenugreek sprouts in the form of lyophilized powder (IM6E) under both in vitro and in vivo conditions. The IM6E demonstrated strong α-glucosidase activity (95.24 %) and moderate α-amylase and invertase inhibition activities under in vitro conditions. The High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) based analysis demonstrated that IM6E possess significantly higher concentration of phenolic phytochemical quercetin (0.148 %) as compared to diosgenin and trigonelline bioactive anti-diabetic nutraceuticals. In normal rats after loading with glucose and sucrose, the IM6E administration in a dose-dependent manner significantly reduced the post-prandial hyperglycemia, in a similar fashion as the anti-diabetic drug voglibose as evident from the area under curves (AUC) of oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and oral sucrose tolerance test (OSTT) tests. The administration of IM6E in streptozotocin (STZ) induced diabetic rats drastically improved the antioxidant activity of plasma in them as determined by Ferric Reducing Ability of Plasma (FRAP) and the effect was found to be dose-dependent. The oral administration of IM6E in diabetic rats normalized almost all the deregulated biochemical markers like liver enzymes, lipids and significantly decreased higher blood glucose levels with increasing insulin levels as compared to diabetic control. The best concentration of IM6E was found to be 300 mg/kg b.w after 21 days of experimentation. The intra-peritoneal glucose tolerance test (IPGTT) in diabetic rats responded very well to IM6E treatment and 100 mg/kg.b.w. behaved almost like the administration of 0.5U insulin/kg bw, and thus indicating the insulinotropic nature of IM6E. Our findings clearly reveal the use of IM6E for diabetes management and at the same it possesses great potential when combined with voglibose to ameliorate diabetes and its associated complications to a greater extent due to synergistic effects as compared to monotherapy. However, more clinical trials need to be performed before recommending IM6E as an anti-diabetic alternative medicine.

Biochemical and proteomic insights revealed selenium priming induced phosphorus stress tolerance in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.).

BACKGROUND: Mineral stress is one of the dominating abiotic stresses, which leads to decrease in crop production. Selenium (Se) seed priming is a recent approach to mitigate the plant's mineral deficiency stress. Although not an essential element, Se has beneficial effects on the plants in terms of growth, quality, yield and plant defense system thus, enhancing plant tolerance to mineral deficiency. METHODS AND RESULTS: The present research was accomplished to find out the effect of Se priming on common bean plant (SFB-1 variety) under phosphorus (P) stress. The seeds were grown invitro on four different MGRL media which are normal MGRL media as control with non-Se primed seeds (Se- P+), non -Se primed seeds grown on P deficient MGRL media (Se- P-), Se primed seeds grown on normal MGRL media (Se+P+) and Se primed seeds grown on P deficient MGRL media (Se+P -). The various morphological and biochemical parameters such as proline content, total sugar content, polyphenols and expression of proteins were analyzed under P stress. The results showed that Se priming has significantly (p ≤ 0.05) affected the morphological as well as biochemical parameters under normal and P stress conditions. The morphological parameters-length, weight, number of nodes and leaves of Se+P+, Se+P- root and shoot tissue showed significant increase as compared to Se-P+, Se-P-. Similarly various biochemical parameters such as total chlorophyll content, proline, total sugar content and polyphenols of Se+P+, Se+P- increased significantly as compared to Se-P+, Se-P-. The differential protein expression in both Se+P+, Se+P- and Se-P+, Se-P- plants were determined using MALDI-MS/MS. The differentially expressed proteins in Se+P+, Se+P- plants were identified as caffeic acid-3-O-methyltransferase (COMT) and SecA protein (a subunit of Protein Translocan transporter), and are found responsible for lignin synthesis in root cell walls and ATP dependent movement of thylakoid proteins across the membranes in shoot respectively. The differential expression of proteins in plant tissues, validated morphological and biochemical responses such as maintaining membrane integrity, enhanced modifications in cellular metabolism, improved polyphenol activities and expression of defensive proteins against mineral deficiency. CONCLUSIONS: The study provided an understanding of Se application as a potential approach increasing tolerance and yield in crop plants against mineral deficiency.

Nutritional Profiling, Phytochemical Composition and Antidiabetic Potential of Taraxacum officinale, an Underutilized Herb.

Taraxacum officinale (T. officinale), a wild vegetable with a number of health claims, has been mostly ignored and unexplored. The study aims to compare the nutritional, phytochemical as well as antidiabetic potential of fresh as well as shade-dried leaves of T. officinale, in order to recommend its best form as a dietary antidiabetic product. The results revealed that as compared to fresh leaves, the shade-dried leaves, in addition to possessing higher levels of carbohydrates, crude protein, crude fat, crude fiber, etc., also contain appreciable amounts of total phenols (5833.12 ± 4.222 mg/100), total flavonoids (188.84 ± 0.019 mg/100 g), ascorbic acid (34.70 ± 0.026 mg/100 g), ß-carotene (3.88 ± 1.473 mg/100 g) and total chlorophyll (239.51 ± 0.015 mg/100 g) antioxidants. The study revealed the presence of medicinally important antidiabetic flavonoid quercetin present in T. officinale leaves. Among the three solvent systems used, the aqueous extract of shade-dried T. officinale leaves comparatively demonstrated potent antidiabetic activity under in vitro conditions in a dose-dependent manner via targeting α-amylase and α-glucosidase, the two potent enzymes of carbohydrate metabolism. Therefore, in addition to being a nutritious herb, the shade-dried leaves of T. officinale have great potential to suppress post-prandial glucose rise and can be better exploited through clinical trials to be used as a dietary intervention for better management of diabetes.

Delphinidin, a dietary anthocyanidin in pigmented fruits and vegetables: a new weapon to blunt prostate cancer growth.

In a recent publication, we have shown that delphinidin, an anthocyanidin induces apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in highly metastatic human prostate cancer (PCa) PC3 cells. Extending these studies, we provide additional evidence that delphinidin induces apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in androgen refractory human PCa 22Rnu1 cells and that these effects are concomitant with inhibition of NFkappaB. We observed that delphinidin treatment to 22Rnu1 cells resulted in a dose-dependent (i) G(2)/M phase cell cycle arrest, (ii) induction of apoptosis (iii) and inhibition of NFkappaB signaling. The induction of apoptosis by delphinidin was mediated via activation of caspases since a general caspase inhibitor Z-VAD-FMK significantly reversed this effect. Delphinidin treatment to cells resulted in a dose-dependent decrease in (i) phosphorylation of IKKgamma (NEMO), (ii) phosphorylation of NFkappaB inhibitory protein IkappaBalpha, (iii) phosphorylation of NFkappaB/p65 at Ser(536) and NFkappaB/p50 at Ser529, (iv) NFkappaB/p65 nuclear translocation, and (v) NFkappaB DNA binding activity. Taken together, our data show that delphinidin induces apoptosis of both androgen independent and androgen refractory human PCa cells via activation of caspases and in addition, this effect might be due to inhibition of NFkappaB signaling. We suggest that delphinidin could be developed as a novel agent against PCa.