The Influence of Environmental Conditions on Secondary Metabolites in Medicinal Plants: A Literature Review

Medicinal plants, a source of different phytochemical compounds, are now subjected to a variety of environmental stresses during their growth and development. Different ecologically limiting factors including temperature, carbon dioxide, lighting, ozone, soil water, soil salinity and soil fertility has significant impact on medicinal plants′ physiological and biochemical responses, as well as the secondary metabolic process. Secondary metabolites (SMs) are useful for assessing the quality of therapeutic ingredients and nowadays, these are used as important natural derived drugs such as immune suppressant, antibiotics, anti-diabetic, and anti-cancer. Plants have the ability to synthesize a variety of secondary metabolites to cope with the negative effects of stress. Here, we focus on how individual environmental variables influence the accumulation of plant secondary metabolites. A total of 48 articles were found to be relevant to the review topic during our systematic review. The review showed the influence of different environmental variables on SMs production and accumulation is complex suggesting the relationship are not only species-specific but also related to increases and decline in SMs by up to 50 %. Therefore, this review improves our understanding of plant SMs ability to adapt to key environmental factors. This can aid in the efficient and long-term optimization of cultivation techniques under ambient environmental conditions in order to maximize the quality and quantity of SMs in plants.     

Advances in Metered Dose Inhaler Technology: Formulation Development

Pressurized metered dose inhalers (MDIs) are a long-standing method to treat diseases of the lung, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. MDIs rely on the driving force of the propellant, which comprises the bulk of the MDI formulation, to atomize droplets containing drug and excipients, which ideally should deposit in the lungs. During the phase out of chlorofluorocarbon propellants and the introduction of more environmentally friendly hydrofluoroalkane propellants, many improvements were made to the methods of formulating for MDI drug delivery along with a greater understanding of formulation variables on product performance. This review presents a survey of challenges associated with formulating MDIs as solution or suspension products with one or more drugs, while considering the physicochemical properties of various excipients and how the addition of these excipients may impact overall product performance of the MDI. Propellants, volatile and nonvolatile cosolvents, surfactants, polymers, suspension stabilizers, and bulking agents are among the variety of excipients discussed in this review article. Furthermore, other formulation approaches, such as engineered excipient and drug-excipient particles, to deliver multiple drugs from a single MDI are also evaluated.     

Cadmium Alters Mitochondrial Membrane Potential,Inhibits Electron Transport Chain Activity and Induces Callose Deposition in Rice Seedlings

Journal of Plant Growth Regulation - In the present study, seedlings of indica rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivars were subjected to 100 and 200 µM Cd(NO3)2 treatment in hydroponics for...     

Shift in Cyanobacteria Community Diversity in Hot Springs of India

Two ecologically distinct tropical sulfur-rich alkaline hot springs, Taptapani at 48°C harboring mesophiles and Atri at 58°C comprising thermophiles situated in the Eastern Ghats foothills of India, differ in their geochemical conditions, and provide an interesting platform to unravel the eco-physiological reasons behind the differential cyanobacterial diversity. The predominance of mesophilic Arthronema (83.81%) in Taptapani and shifting predominance of thermophilic Leptolyngbya (96.25%) in Atri as discovered through 16S rRNA gene Illumina sequencing of their metagenomics DNA as a function of temperature are the intriguing features of the present study. Differential presence of the cyanobacterial community at the phylum level in these two hot springs was found to be correlated with the unequal coexistence of Chloroflexi, Taptapani the non-cyanobacteria members and the possible influence of physiochemical parameters including temperature. Variation in cyanobacterial diversity and composition of these hot springs as revealed through sequence analysis were also evinced by respective differences in richness, evenness, and Shannon diversity indices.