Ethnobotanical study and conservation status of trees in the district Sargodha,Punjab, Pakistan

Sargodha district is one of the least studied regions of Pakistan regarding its ethnobotanical values. This paper is the first report related to the documentation and conservation status of the tree species in the Sargodha district, and their folk ethnobotanical uses. An interview base survey was conducted in the study area in 2010-2013. The ethnobotanical data revealed the use of 100 tree species (6 gymnosperms, 94 angiosperms) belonging to 77 genera (6 gymnosperms, 71 angiosperms) and 39 families (4 gymnosperms, 35 angiosperms), with the Fabaceae ranking first with 19 tree species, followed by the Moraceae (12 species). Tree species like Aegle marmelos, Butea monosperma, Diospyrus malabarica, Gmelina arborea, Kigelia africana, Manilkara hexandra, Manilkara zapota, Mimusops elengi, Nyctanthes arbor-tristis, Putranjiva roxburghii, Terminalia arjuna and Terminalia bellerica are not only unique in their medicinal value but also interesting because of their unusual occurrence here. Thevetia peruviana, Cassia fistula, Celtis australis, Delonix regia, Diospyrus malabarica, Grevillea robusta, Haplophragma adenophylum, Jacaranda mimosifolia, Lagerstroemia speciosa, Plumeria rubra, Pterospermum acerifolium, Roystonea regia, Taxodium distichum and Tectona grandis are included among the worth looking ornamental tree species. Capparis decidua, Dalbergia sissoo, Tamarix aphylla, Tamarix dioica, Prosopis cineraria and Ziziphus mauritiana are the most commonly used timber species. Other common ethnobotanical utilization of these trees includes either sheltering or fuel or agricultural uses. Lack of awareness about the potential uses of these species, and particularly ignorance of the concerned authorities, have led to a decline in the population of this precious tree flora. Documentation of this tree flora, and as-sociated indigenous knowledge, can be used as a basis for developing management plans for conservation and sustainable use of this flora in the study area. A well-organized management is critical to restore and conserve this endangered natural resource in the District Sargodha, Pakistan. The immense medicinal and timber value of these tree species make it necessary to promote their conservation to simultaneously alleviate the poverty and improve the socio-economic status of the study area.     

Mycobacterial lipoarabinomannan: an extraordinary lipoheteroglycan with profound physiological effects

Detailed structural and functional studies over the last decade have led to current recognition of the mycobacterial lipoarabinomannan (LAM) as a phosphatidylinositol anchored lipoglycan with diverse biological activities. Fatty acylation has been demonstrated to be essential for LAM to maintain its functional integrity although the focus has largely been on the arabinan motifs and the terminal capping function. It has recently been shown that the mannose caps may be involved not only in attenuating host immune response, but also in mediating the binding of mycobacteria to and subsequent entry into macrophages. This may further be linked to an intracellular trafficking pathway through which LAM is thought to be presented by CD1 to subsets of T-cells. The implication of LAM as major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-independent T-cell epitope and the ensuing immune response is an area of intensive studies. Another recent focus of research is the biosynthesis of arabinan which has been shown to be inhibitable by the anti- tuberculosis drug, ethambutol. The phenomenon of truncated LAM as synthesized by ethambutol resistant strains provides an invaluable handle for dissecting the array of arabinosyltransferases involved, as well as generating much needed structural variants for further structural and functional studies. It is hoped that with more systematic investigations based on clinical isolates and human cell lines, the true significance of LAM in the immunopathogenesis of tuberculosis and leprosy can eventually be explained.      

Investigation of the pharmaceutical and pharmacological equivalence of different Hawthorn extracts

Seven Hawthorn extracts were tested in isolated guinea pig aorta rings. The effect on noradrenaline- (10 microM) induced contraction was investigated. The extracts were prepared using ethanol (40 to 70% v/v), methanol (40 to 70% v/v), and water as the extraction solvents. The aqueous-alcoholic extracts displayed similar spectra of constituents. They were characterised by similar procyanidin, flavonoid, total vitexin and total phenols content and by similar TLC fingerprint chromatograms. The aqueous extract, however, showed a different fingerprint and a noticeably lower concentration of procyanidins, flavonoids and total phenols but a similar total vitexin content. All 7 extracts had a relaxant effect on the aorta precontracted by noradrenaline and led to relaxations to 44 until 29% of the initial values. The EC50 values of the aqueous-alcoholic extracts varied between 4.16 and 9.8 mg/l. The aqueous extract produced a similarly strong maximal relaxation as the other extracts, but the EC50, at 22.39 mg/l, was markedly higher. The results show that Hawthorn extracts with comparable quality profiles were obtained by using aqueous-alcoholic extraction solvents (40 to 70% ethanol or methanol). The extracts exerted comparable pharmacological effects. When using water as the extraction solvent, both, the spectrum of constituents and the pharmacological effect, deviated remarkably. It is thus possible to obtain bioequivalent extracts with comparable effect profiles by using 40 to 70% ethanol or methanol as the extraction solvent.