Background: Plants are the natural source of antioxidants as well as antimicrobial compounds that has great potentials in pharmaceutical industry. In the present study, two medicinal plants Atropa belladonna and Matricaria chamomilla were collected from Northern areas of Pakistan. Materials and Methods:The extracts of the collected plants were obtained by microwave assisted extraction (MAE) with changing parameters, power level and time; methanol and ethanol were solvents used during extraction. The extracts of plants were tested against different bacterial strains. Results: It was observed that ethanolic extracts of Atropa belladonna has more significant antimicrobial activity against S.aureus than E.coli. In parallel, methanolic extract of Matricaria chamomilla showed greater significant antibacterial activity against S.aureus when compared with E.coli. In comparison, ethanolic extracts of Matricaria chamomilla has shown more significant results against S. aureus than E.coli (p≤0.05). Both plants had no antibacterial activity against S.typhi. The free radical scavenging activity observed by DPPH assay, indicate that both plants have antioxidant activity at all levels of concentrations in solvent tested during the present work. However, methanolic extracts had greater antioxidant activity when compared with ethanolic extracts. Conclusion: Present study is thus helpful in highlighting present potentials for antioxidant and antimicrobial properties in the selected plants.

Accelerated solvent extraction optimized for extraction of algal lipids and recovery of polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Decreasing arable land and fresh water resources, and increasing soil salinization and production of energy from food crops pose a threat to plant productivity and caused several environmental problems. Using plant species which can grow on saline degraded soils for energy production can be a sustainable approach because they do not compete for the agricultural lands and availability of fresh water. These plants can be cultivated with seawater without compromising their biomass for commercializing purposes such as lignocellulosic content and seed yields and could strongly benefit as energy plants. Optimizing biomass production and its economic conversion to the end product are, however, of paramount importance. The biomass of halophytes can be improved through studying unexplored aspects of these plants related to genetic manipulations. Here, we recommended current advances and highlight the key genetic approaches required in halophytes for biofuel production. Genetic approaches might lead to desired alterations in the composition of halophytic lignocellulosic biomass, including higher quantity of cellulose and hemicelluloses and lower lignin. In summary, the genetic manipulations in halophytes might lead to improvement in biomass compositions hence can be used as a feedstock for the production of biofuel on nutrient poor degraded soils.

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