Nighat Shaheen

AFLP mediated genetic diversity of malvaceae species

AFLP (Amplified fragment length polymorphism) marker system is a reliable method in the evaluation of genetic diversity among different species. It was used to explore phenetic relationships and diversity within and between 13 Malvaceae species belonging to 5 different genera. The primary objective of the study was to evaluate the taxonomic potential, usefulness and applicability of AFLP marker system to reconstruct genetic relationships at interspecific and intergeneric level in Malvaceae. In total, 28 accessions comprising 13 species were included in the study but for assorted technical reasons five profiles remained incomplete or with ambiguous banding pattern. Therefore 23 accessions comprising 12 species were included in the final analysis. Two primer pairs produced a total of 73 bands, of which 70 were polymorphic. Neighbor Joining (NJ) tree showed that all 23 accessions were basically classified in three main clusters and several sub-clusters. The tree had well supported branches especially at the level of accessions and species. However, it also had poor bootsrap support at some intermediate and deeper branches. The informative value of the technique was evaluated by comparing the current results with earlier morphological and molecular investigations. Despite some poorly supported parts of the tree, most of the topologies established were in general congruence with earlier studies revealing that AFLP is a robust and reliable tool for DNA fingerprinting and detecting genetic relationships in Malvaceae at different taxonomic levels.

Palyonological studies of the semi-desert plant species from Pakistan.

The detailed palynological description of 40 angiospermic plant species, belonging to 22 families and 38 genera were made. Out of the 22 families, 3 families were monocotyledonous and 19 dicotyledonous. The Brassicaceae and Papilionaceae were the largest families regarding number of species having four species each. In all the species except Poaceae, the pollen types were tricolporate. In case of Calendula arvensis L., Salvia aegyptica, Melia azedarrach tetracolporate pollens were observed, in Carum copticum (L.) Bth, the pollens were bicolpate; in Cynoglosum lanceolatum Forssk., it was fenestrate while in Bougainvillea glabra Choisy., it was periporate. Thus, the present study was fruitful as it avoids the difficulties faced by taxonomists and plant scientists in correlating and differentiating plant species.

Pollen fertility estimation of some sub-tropical flora of Pakistan

Medicinal plants are important elements of indigenous medical system that have persisted in developing countries. Many of the pharmacological principles currently used as anticancer agents were first isolated from plants. However, some important anticancer agents are still extracted from plants because they cannot be synthesized chemically on a commercial scale due to their complex structures that often contain several chiral centers. The aim of this study was to test different extracts from the leaves of Moringa or drumstick tree ( Moringa oleifera ) for activity against leukemia and hepatocarcinoma cells in vitro . The extracts could kill majority (70 - 86%) of the abnormal cells among primary cells harvested from 10 patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and 15 with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) as well as a culture of hepatocarcinoma cells (75% death), but most significantly by the hot water and ethanol extracts. In conclusion, M. oleifera may have potential for use as source of natural treatment for diseases such as cancer.