Plants have provided and continue to provide the inspiration and foundation for modern medicines. Natural product isolation is a key component of the process of drug discovery from plants. The purpose of this experiment is to introduce first semester undergraduate organic chemistry students, who have relatively few lab techniques at their disposal, to the process of natural product isolation. In one, 3 h lab period, students use steam-distillation and liquid-phase extraction to isolate a single medicinally relevant molecule from one of three plants. The identity of the molecule can be demonstrated using infrared spectroscopy and thin-layer chromatography. Students choose to isolate thymol from thyme (Thymus vulgaris), citral from lemongrass (Cymbopogen), or camphor from sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata)three commercially available plants with a long history of use. Each isolated molecule has a common biosynthetic origin in the plant, and this is discussed to introduce the relationship between organic chemistry and biochemistry.

Since 2014, biology students at Fort Lewis College have studied the water quality of the Animas River in Durango, Colorado. Environmental microbiology and molecular biology techniques have been employed to study Escherichia coli isolates from the river and to define characteristics of the bacteria related to public health. E. coli was found in the river, as well as in culverts and tributary creeks that drain into the river within the Durango city limits. Concentrations of E. coli in the river occasionally exceeded the US EPA guideline of 126 CFU per 100 mL for recreational water use. Many of the E. coli isolates were able to be grown at 45 °C, an indication of mammalian origin. Unexpectedly, 8% of the isolates contained the intimin (eae) gene, a virulence gene characteristic of two pathotypes of E. coli, the enterohemorrhagic and enteropathogenic E. coli. Several isolates tested were resistant to multiple antibiotics commonly used in animal and human medicine. Further study is warranted to determine the source of these bacteria entering the Animas River, and to further characterize the possible disease potential of multi-antibiotic resistant and virulence gene-containing isolates found in a semi-rural/urban setting.

Lavender flower is commonly used in teas, lotions and other commercial products, and the oil extract and several of its components have been shown to be beneficial in reduction of inflammation. However, the effects of the water soluble components of lavender flowers has not been examined. We hypothesized that aqueous components might also have immunomodulatory effects. In a mouse macrophage cell line (RAW 264.7) we examined TNFa production and the downstream activation of NFkb associated with treatment with aqueous extract of lavender and its primary components, coumarin and herniarin. Unlike oil extract, treatment with aqueous extract for 24 hr resulted in a significant increase in TNFa. Downstream there was also a significant increase in IKK phosphorylation and an increase in NFkb translocation into the nucleus. Individual molecular components of the aqueous extract, herniarin and coumarin did not individually, or in combination, result in similar immunomodulation, and the immune stimulatory effects were not the result of contamination by exogenous endotoxins. We conclude that, similar to other plant derived teas, the aqueous extract of lavender may stimulate immune function, possibly via b‐glucans found in flowering components of the plant.Support or Funding InformationSupported by the Fort Lewis College Student Competitive Research Grant.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.