Ludmila Yarmolinsky

Potent antiviral flavone glycosides from Ficus benjamina leaves

Crude ethanol extracts from Ficus benjamina leaves strongly inhibit Herpes Simplex Virus 1 and 2 (HSV-1/2) as well as Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV) cell infection in vitro. Bioassay-guided fractionation of the crude extract demonstrated that the most efficient inhibition of HSV-1 and HSV-2 was obtained with the flavonoid fraction. The present study was aimed to further isolate, purify and identify substances with potent antiviral activity from the flavonoid fraction of F. benjamina extracts. Flavonoids were collected from the leaf ethanol extracts through repeated purification procedure and HPLC analysis. The antiviral activity of each substance was then evaluated in cell culture. Three known flavone glycosides, (1) quercetin 3-O-rutinoside, (2) kaempferol 3-O-rutinoside and (3) kaempferol 3-O-robinobioside, showing highest antiviral efficiency were selected and their structure was determined by spectroscopic analyses including NMR and mass spectrometry (MS). These three flavones were highly effective against HSV-1 reaching a selectivity index (SI) of 266, 100 and 666 for compound 1, 2 and 3, respectively, while the SI of their aglycons, quercetin and kaempferol amounted only in 7.1 and 3.2, respectively. Kaempferol 3-O-robinobioside showed similar SI to that of acyclovir (ACV), the standard anti-HSV drug. Although highly effective against HSV-1 and HSV-2, these flavone glycosides did not show any significant activity against VZV.

Antiviral activity of ethanol extracts of Ficus binjamina and Lilium candidum in vitro

The antiviral activity of plant ethanol extracts against Herpes Simplex Virus-1 and -2 (HSV-1 and HSV-2) and Varicella-Zoster Virus (VZV) was investigated in vitro. Ficus binjamina, resistant to plant viruses, and Lilium candidum, which has a high susceptibility to plant viruses were used. Leaf extracts of F. binjamina inhibited all studied viruses, while its fruit extracts inhibited only VZV. L. candidum leaf extracts had no effect on VZV but strongly inhibited HSV-1 and slightly HSV-2. None of the extracts showed significant cytotoxic effect on uninfected Vero cells even at a concentration of 250 microg/ml (CC(50)>400 microg/ml). The greatest antiviral effect was obtained when extracts were added to cells at the time of infection, whereas a partial inhibitory effect was observed when they were added post-infection. There was indirect evidence for strong interactions between the plant extracts and the viruses and weak interactions with the cell surface.

Effect of medicinal plants on wound healing

In the United States alone, chronic wounds affect 6.5 million patients. It is expected that the number of chronic wounds will increase worldwide due to the increase in age‐related conditions and pathologies such as diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases. An estimated excess of US

Anti-Herpetic Activity of Callissia fragrans and Simmondsia chinensis Leaf Extracts In Vitro

25 billion is spent annually on treatment of chronic wounds, and the burden is rapidly growing due to increasing healthcare costs, an aging population, and a sharp rise in the incidence of diabetes and obesity worldwide. While current therapeutic agents have generally inadequate efficacy and number of serious adverse effects, the medicinal plants have been used in medicine since ancient times and are well known for their abilities to promote wound healing and prevent infection without grave side effects. Thus, herbal therapy may be an alternative strategy for treatment of wounds. The purpose of this review is to provide the verified data on the medicinal plants of the world flora with wound healing activity including the biologically active substances belonging to these herbal preparations and describe in detail the various cellular and molecular mechanisms of their actions.

Anti-Herpetic Activity of and Leaf Extracts

The antiviral activity of Callissia fragrans and Simnondsia chinensis aquatic and ethanol leaf extracts, as well as purified fractions from these extracts was studied against herpetic viruses in vitro. Ethanol extract of C. fragrans effectively inhibited the infection of Vero cells by HSV-1, HSV-2 in vitro, while its aquatic extract inhibited only VZV. Although S. chinensis leaf extract strongly inhibited all studied viruses, the selectivity index of this extract was very low, due to its high toxicity. However, the majority of its fractions showed low toxicity and higher antiviral activity and therefore very high SI. Strong interactions between virus and extracts were found.

The Impact of Diet Wheat Source on the Onset of Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus—Lessons Learned from the Non-Obese Diabetic (NOD) Mouse Model

The antiviral activity of Callissia fragrans and Simnondsia chinensis aquatic and ethanol leaf extracts, as well as purified fractions from these extracts was studied against herpetic viruses in vitro. Ethanol extract of C. fragrans effectively inhibited the infection of Vero cells by HSV-1, HSV-2 in vitro, while its aquatic extract inhibited only VZV. Although S. chinensis leaf extract strongly inhibited all studied viruses, the selectivity index of this extract was very low, due to its high toxicity. However, the majority of its fractions showed low toxicity and higher antiviral activity and therefore very high SI. Strong interactions between virus and extracts were found.

Preferential anti-proliferative activity of Varthemia iphionoides (Chiliadenus iphinoides)

Nutrition, especially wheat consumption, is a major factor involved in the onset of type 1 diabetes (T1D) and other autoimmune diseases such as celiac. While modern wheat cultivars possess similar gliadin proteins associated with the onset of celiac disease and T1D, alternative dietary wheat sources from Israeli landraces and native ancestral species may be lacking the epitopes linked with T1D, potentially reducing the incidence of T1D. The Non-Obese Diabetic (NOD) mouse model was used to monitor the effects of dietary wheat sources on the onset and development of T1D. The effects of modern wheat flour were compared with those from either T. aestivum, T. turgidum spp. dicoccoides, or T. turgidum spp. dicoccum landraces or a non-wheat diet. Animals which received wheat from local landraces or ancestral species such as emmer displayed a lower incidence of T1D and related complications compared to animals fed a modern wheat variety. This study is the first report of the diabetogenic properties of various dietary wheat sources and suggests that alternative dietary wheat sources may lack T1D linked epitopes, thus reducing the incidence of T1D.

Effect of poly‐herbal preparations on wound healing

The present study was aimed at investigating the anti-cancer properties of the unique chemotype of Varthemia iphionoides (V. iphionoides) growing in the Judaea region (Israel). Specifically, we determined the effects of the crude ethanolic extract of V. iphionoides on the growth and viability of human cancer cell lines (SKOV3 ovarian carcinoma cells, BG melanoma cells, A549 lung cancer cells, and HL-60 myeloblastic leukemia cells). We found that the extract exhibited much stronger in vitro anti-leukemic effects on the HL-60 cells than the other cell lines tested. Importantly, both polyphenol- and flavonoid-containing fractions prepared from the extract significantly reduced the proliferation of HL-60 cells, but only the flavonoid fraction produced cytotoxic effects as well. These results suggest that V. iphionoides extract and its active components have potential therapeutic and/or preventive activity against acute myeloid leukemia.

Review: Inhibition of bacterial quorum sensing by plant extracts

To the Editor: In recent years, interest in medicinal plants and their phytochemicals with beneficial wound healing (WH) properties has increased considerably. This is mainly due to the urgent necessity to look for new drugs that must be more effective and less toxic than the current agents. With this in mind, we have written a systematic and comprehensive review of the literature on the pro-WH activity of herbal extracts and some compounds of plant origin. In this recent work of ours, we have demonstrated in great detail that the medicinal plants and many phytochemicals have promising therapeutic potentials. The collected data on the WH activities of medicinal plants suggests a bright future for them as their full potential will unfold once their chemical content and mode of action will be investigated. As the mechanisms of action of plant-derived pro-WH drugs are numerous, various preparations with multispectral WH activity could be prepared. Furthermore, the WH potential of plantderived agents should not be limited to cellular and animal models, but as a further step of assessment performance of clinical trials should be encouraged. Usually the most frequent strategy of treating wounds in traditional ethnopharmacology is to apply one medicinal plant at a time since in many cases it is suffice to achieve the desirable outcome. The same mode of therapeutic action emerges from the scientific literature. Conversely, reports on the combined action of several pro-WH herbs are few and sporadic. Among them is the report on the Dragon’s blood—a red resin produced from four plant species. Recently, it was shown that in the framework of a clinical study the Dragon’s blood cream has significantly improved the WH duration after removal of human skin tags on legs. In another study, the application of the herbal formulation called “Jena” (based on two Ugandan medicinal plants) led to a significantly higher rate of wound closure than the controls, and also significantly shortened the epithelialization time of dorsal skin wounds in rats. The histological examinations of the wounds revealed more collagen fibers, less inflammation, and better tissue remodeling in case of the “Jena” treated wounds. Combination of various ingredients from various plants into an integrated pro-WH therapy also was a story of success. A poly-herbal cream created on the basis of aqueous extracts of Malva sylvestris and Solanum nigrum leaves, and oily extract of Rosa damascena petals, accelerated healing of burn wounds in rats by reducing inflammation and encouraging reepithelialization at the wound site. Nevertheless, the active phytochemicals standing behind the pro-WH activities of the cream were not determined and their mode of action was not investigated. Thus, determining the active compounds along with their targets remains an important issue for future investigation, without which the full potential of pro-WH poly-herbal formulations will not be fully assessed. While only handful of works has been carried out to detect poly-herbal pro-WH mixtures, we are strongly convinced that this avenue of research should be given much more attention in the future. In favor of this notion is the simple observation that herbal extracts are complex mixtures of active compounds that simultaneously act on hundreds of targets in the human genome that form a continuous protein-protein interactions network between themselves. Thus, based on the network based approach, it is reasonable to suggest that the multitarget properties of herbal extracts and especially their combinations might be superior to conventional use of individual agents that affect only one target at a time (Budovsky and Fraifeld, and Budovsky et al., references therein). From the network-based perspective, partial synergistic inhibition of several targets could be more efficient than the complete inhibition of a single target, making the poly-herbal preparations a promising category for developing new pro-WH therapies possessing a pleiotropic mode of action. In summary, we think that selection of already confirmed proWH plants and examining their combinations on cellular, animal, and human models could significantly fasten the identification of even more potent and less toxic pro-WH therapies.

Recent updates on the phytochemistry and pharmacological properties of Phlomis viscosa Poiret

Bacterial quorum sensing (QS) is a form of cell-to-cell communication which is vital to the pathogenicity of many bacteria, and therefore a promising target for the development of new treatments for microbial infections. While many medicinal plants possess antibacterial activity, only a few plants have been shown to target quorum sensing. In the face of increased microbial resistance to existing antibiotics coupled with the decline in novel antibiotic development, QS inhibitors from medicinal plants is a promising direction for new antibacterial treatments,. The purpose of this review is to summarize the verified data on the anti-QS properties of medicinal plants and the various mechanisms of their actions.