Quantitative ethnomedicinal study of plants used in the Nelliyampathy hills of Kerala, India.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Inspite of tremendous advances made in allopathic medical practices, medicinal plants have played an important role throughout the world in treating and preventing a variety of diseases and hence there is urgency in recording such data. This is the first ethnobotanical study in which statistical calculations about plants are done by the Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) method. The present study was aimed to identify plants collected for medicinal purposes by the traditional healers of Nelliyampathy hills, located in Palakkad district of Kerala, India and to document the traditional names, preparation and uses of these plants. METHODS: The field study was carried out over a period of 2 years (2011-2013) using semi-structured interviews with 66 informants (most of the informants belonged to an age between 50 and 70 years) in six remote locations in the hills. Ethnomedicinal data was analyzed using frequency citation (FC), relative frequency of citation (RFC) and use value (UV) along with a Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC). Demographic characteristics of participants, ethnobotanical inventory of plants and data on medicinal application and administration were recorded. RESULTS: A total of 85 medicinal plants belonging to 49 families were reported to be used against 19 different ailments in the hills. The maximum reported medicinal plant families were Cucurbitaceae with 6 species followed by Acanthaceae, Malvaceae and Fabaceae (each 5 species), Asteraceae, Lamiaceae, Moraceae and Myrtaceae (each 3 species), the most dominant life form of the species includes herbs (42) followed by tree (20), climber (15) and shrub (8), the most frequent used part was leaves (40%) followed by root (14%), seed and flowers (each12%), fruit (9%), bark (7%), stem (2%), latex (2%), rhizome and whole plant (each 1%), the most common preparation and administration methods were paste (32%), powder (22%), decoction and juice (each 20%) and raw (4%), infusion and inhalation (each1% ). The Pearson correlation coefficient between RFC and UV was 0.638 showing highly positive significant association. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, we have documented considerable indigenous knowledge about the native medicinal plants in Nelliyampathy hills for treating common ailments. The plants such as further investigated phytochemically and pharmacologically which leads to natural drug discovery development may be based on the present study. The study has various socioeconomic dimensions which are associated with the local communities.

The role of many-particle excitations in Coulomb blockaded transport.

We discuss the role of electron-electron and electron-phonon correlations in current flow in the Coulomb blockade regime, focusing specifically on non-trivial signatures arising from the breakdown of mean-field theory. By solving transport equations directly in Fock space, we show that electron-electron interactions manifest as gateable excitations experimentally observed in the current-voltage characteristic. While these excitations might merge into an incoherent sum that allows occasional simplifications, a clear separation of excitations into slow 'traps' and fast 'channels' can lead to further novelties such as negative differential resistance, hysteresis and random telegraph signals. Analogous novelties for electron-phonon correlation include the breakdown of commonly anticipated Stokes-anti-Stokes intensities, and an anomalous decrease in phonon population upon heating due to reabsorption of emitted phonons.

A "cleanup procedure" involving periodate oxidation in the enzymatic synthesis of chemically pure alpha-32P and alpha-33P labelled deoxyribonucleotides.

Enzymatic synthesis of alpha-(32)P and alpha-(33)P labelled deoxyribonucleotides involves the transfer of radiolabelled phosphorus from either gamma-(32)P adenosine triphosphate (gamma-ATP) or gamma-(32)P guanosine triphosphate (gamma-GTP). Subsequent removal of these ribonucleotides is essential for the preparation of chemically pure deoxyribonucleotides. Agarose-phenyl boronate columns, which bind specifically to cis-diol moieties, have been used for the removal of ribonucleotide contaminants. However, this involves column losses and additional radiation exposure. In the present work we describe a chemical method for the improvement of the chemical purity, based on the preferential oxidation of ribose sugars by periodate. The cis-diol moiety of ribose is specifically oxidised to the dialdehyde. The excess periodate ions were destroyed using ethylene glycol. The phosphate group was then cleaved by beta-elimination using alkali. The product was purified using anion exchange chromatography. The efficiency of the process was validated using tracer gamma-(32)P ATP and alpha-(32)P dATP. Samples at various steps were analysed by TLC, autoradiography and HPLC. During the process ATP is oxidised whereas 2'-deoxyadenosine triphosphate (dATP) remains intact. The alpha-(32)P dATP synthesized by this process was assayed for its incorporation in lambda-DNA by the random priming method and was found to be effectively incorporated. The process developed is an efficient and convenient method for the preparation of chemically pure deoxyribonucleotides.