The traditional uses, phytochemistry, pharmacology and toxicology of Dictamnus dasycarpus: a review.

OBJECTIVES: Dictamnus dasycarpus is a plant of the Rutaceae family, and its root bark is the main part used as a medicine, named 'Bai-Xian-Pi'. It is used to clear away heat, remove dampness, and dispel wind and also used for detoxification. The purpose of this review is to provide a systematic review about the botany, traditional uses, phytochemistry, pharmacology and toxicology of this plant. KEY FINDINGS: More than 200 compounds have been isolated and identified from the plant, including alkaloids and their glycosides, terpenoids and their derivatives and phenylpropanoids. Extensive pharmacological activities of the extracts or compounds of D. dasycarpus in vivo and in vitro were mainly confirmed, including anti-inflammatory activity, protecting cardiovascular activity, improving liver injury and anti-cancer activity. SUMMARY: In this paper, the botany, traditional uses, phytochemistry and pharmacology of D. dasycarpus were reviewed. In the future, D. dasycarpus needs further study, such as paying more attention to quality control and the utilization on agriculture. In addition, discussing the medicinal components of decoction as well as the toxicity will also contribute to the progress of clinical trial studies.

Discovery and expression profile analysis of AP2/ERF family genes from Triticum aestivum.

Throughout its development, common wheat, Triticum aestivum responds to different kinds of adverse abiotic and biotic stress by expressing specific genes that allow it to adapt to these stresses. In this process, genes in the AP2/ERF family encode transcriptional regulators involved in diverse developmental and physiological processes play critical roles. Here, we established an extensive picture of the AP2/ERF family genes in wheat. From 960, 174 ESTs of T. aestivum, 117 putative AP2/ERF family genes were identified by in silico analysis based on the presence of the conserved AP2/ERF domain amino acid sequence of Arabidopsis thaliana. Based on the model species A. thaliana, the AP2/ERF TFs from T. aestivum were classified into five subfamilies with the following number of members: DREB (57), ERF (47), AP2 (9), RAV (3) and Soloist (1). Using the available EST information as a source of expression data, the putative AP2/ERF family genes from T. aestivum were detected in nine kinds of tissues. Transcripts of the genes were shown to be most abundant in leaves, followed by roots and seeds, and the least abundant in stem. Most of the T. aestivum AP2/ERF family genes showed some tissue specificity.

Isolation and characterization of an AP2/ERF-RAV transcription factor BnaRAV-1-HY15 in Brassica napus L. HuYou15.

Transcriptional regulation is thought to be important for stress tolerance and response of transcription factors. RAV subfamily transcription factor contains an AP2- and B3-DNA binding domain, which belongs to the AP2/ERF family. It encodes transcriptional regulators with a variety of functions involved in the developmental and physiological processes in plants. Here, a RAV-like gene, BnaRAV-1-HY15, was isolated from Brassica napus L. cv HuYou15. Sequence homology analysis revealed that the BnaRAV-1-HY15 factor belongs to the RAV subfamily of the AP2/ERF family, and it shares high identity with the AtRAV2 of Arabidopsis. Sequence and three-dimensional structural analyses revealed that BnaRAV-1-HY15 contains two distinct DNA-binding domains, one AP2 domain together with one B3 domain. The AP2 domain composed of 54 amino acids and present in N-terminal region. In addition to AP2 domain, 117 amino acids show significant sequence similarity to the B3 domain present in C-terminal region. Semi-quantitative RT-PCR analysis indicated that the BnaRAV-1-HY15 gene is induced by cold, NaCl and PEG treatments. Under ABA stress, the expression of BnaRAV-1-HY15 gene was not detected. The gene expression was also not traceable from the tissues of pod, bud, petal, leaf, stem and root of normally grown B. napus L. HuYou15 plant at the period of flowering and seed development.

[Cloning and bioinformatic analyzing of transcription factor AP2/ERF-B3 subfamily genes from Brassica napus L. Huyou 15].

AP2/ERF is a large family of transcription factors in plant. Genes in the AP2/ERF family encode transcriptional regulators with a variety of functions involved in the developmental and physiological processes in plants. Two AP2/ERF family transcriptional regulators (BnaERFB3-1 and BnaERFB3-2) were isolated from B. napus by in silico cloning method using the conserved domain amino acid sequence of A. thaliana AP2/ERF-B3 subfamily as probe. Based on the sequences of BnaERFB3-1 and BnaERFB3-2, we isolated the BnaERFB3-1-Hy15 gene and BnaERFB3-2-Hy15 gene from winter and spring type B. napus L. cv Huyou15 by RT-PCR and PCR using cDNA and DNA as template. DNA sequencing and analyzing indicated that there was only one amino acid residue difference between BnaERFB3-1 and BnaERFB3-1-Hy15, BnaERFB3-2 and BnaERFB3-2-Hy15, respectively. No intron localized on the two genes from Huyou15. Then, deduced amino acid sequence, composition, hydrophobicty and hydrophilicity, physical and chemical characterization, phylogenetic tree, conserved domain sequences, function domain, molecular modeling, and folding state were predicted and analyzed. BnaERFB3-1-Hy15 and BnaERFB3-2-Hy15 were hydrophilic protein. The two proteins and AtERF5 have similar three-dimension structure. The disordered residues of protein BnaERFB3-1-Hy15 and BnaERFB3-2-Hy15 were higher than that of AtERF5. BnaERFB3-1 was mainly expressed in seed, while BnaERFB3-2 was mainly expressed in root. Moreover, those genes were successfully constructed into the recombinant plasmids of plant expression vector and yeast expression vector, which established a base for transformation of oilseed and studies of those genes function in abiotic stresses of B. napus.