Podophyllotoxin, a well-known naturally occurring aryltetralin lignan occurs in few plant species that is used as a precursor for the chemical synthesis of the anticancer drugs like etoposide, teniposide and etopophose phosphate. The availiability of this lignan is becoming increasingly limited because of the scarce occurance of its natural sources and also because synthetic approaches for its production are still commercially unacceptable. This paper reports first time the production of podophyllotoxin by an endophytic fungus Fusarium oxysporum isolated from the medicinal plant Juniperus recurva. Further confirmation and quantification of podophyllotoxin was performed by HPLC, LC-MS, and LC-MS/MS.

Imbalance in production and clearance of amyloid beta (Aβ) is the primary reason for its deposition in Alzheimer disease. Macroautophagy/autophagy is one of the important mechanisms for clearance of both intracellular and extracellular Aβ. Here, through screening, we identified alborixin, an ionophore, as a potent inducer of autophagy. We found that autophagy induced by alborixin substantially cleared Aβ in microglia and primary neuronal cells. Induction of autophagy was accompanied by up regulation of autophagy proteins BECN1/Beclin 1, ATG5, ATG7 and increased lysosomal activities. Autophagy induced by alborixin was associated with inhibition of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)-AKT pathway. A knock down of PTEN and consistent, constitutive activation of AKT inhibited alborixin-induced autophagy and consequent clearance of Aβ. Furthermore, clearance of Aβ by alborixin led to significant reduction of Aβ-mediated cytotoxicity in primary neurons and differentiated N2a cells. Thus, our findings put forward alborixin as a potential anti-Alzheimer therapeutic lead.

Medicinal plants have been playing an essential role in the development of human culture. As a source of medicine, Medicinal plants have always been at forefront virtually all cultures of civilizations. Medicinal plants are regarded as rich resources of traditional medicines and from these plants many of the modern medicines are produced. For thousands of years medicinal plants have been used to treat health disorders, to add flavor and conserve food and to prevent diseases epidemics. The secondary metabolites produced by the plants are usually responsible for the biological characteristics of plant species used throughout the world. The microbial growth in diverse situations is controlled by plant derived products. In this review we gave general overview of the medicinal plants.

A Psychrotolerant alkaline protease producing bacterium IIIM-ST045 was isolated from a soil sample collected from the Thajiwas glacier of Kashmir, India and identified as Stenotrophomonas sp. on the basis of its biochemical properties and 16S ribosomal gene sequencing. The strain could grow well within a temperature range of 4-37°C however, showed optimum growth at 15°C. The strain was found to over-produce proteases when it was grown in media containing lactose as carbon source (157.50 U mg(-1)). The maximum specific enzyme activity (398 U mg(-1)) was obtained using soya oil as nitrogen source, however, the inorganic nitrogen sources urea, ammonium chloride and ammonium sulphate showed the lowest production of 38.9, 62.2 and 57.9 U mg(-1). The enzyme was purified to 18.45 folds and the molecular weight of the partially purified protease was estimated to be ~55 kDa by SDS-PAGE analysis. The protease activity increased as the increase in enzyme concentration while as the optimum enzyme activity was found when casein (1% w/v) was used as substrate. The enzyme was highly active over a wide range of pH from 6.5 to 12.0 showing optimum activity at pH 10.0. The optimum temperature for the enzyme was 15°C. Proteolytic activity reduced gradually with higher temperatures with a decrease of 56% at 40°C. The purified enzyme was checked for the removal of protein containing tea stains using a silk cloth within a temperature range of 10-60°C. The best washing efficiency results obtained at low temperatures indicate that the enzyme may be used for cold washing purposes of delicate fabrics that otherwise are vulnerable to high temperatures.