Search Results (7)

This study aimed to determine the chemical composition of five Lavender essential oils (LEOs) using the gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy technique and to assess their antibacterial activity against four marine Vibrio species, including Shewanella algae, Shewanella maridflavi, Vibrio harveyi, and Vibrio alginolyticus. Sensitivity tests were performed using the disk diffusion and serial dilution methods. The results showed that all five LEOs exhibited antibacterial activity against the four tested marine Vibrio species. The antibacterial activities of all five LEOs were above moderate sensitivity. The five LEOs from French blue, space blue, eye-catching, and true Lavender showed high sensitivity, particularly against Shewanella maridflavi. The compounds of LEOs from different varieties of Lavender were similar and mainly comprised linalool, linalyl acetate, eucalyptol, and isoborneol. Different varieties of LEOs possessed unique components besides common components, and the percentage of each one was different, which led to different fragrance loads. The major fragrances were lily of the valley, an aromatic compound fragrance, and an herbal fragrance. The antibacterial activity of LEO from eye-catching Lavender was better than that of others, which could provide a reference for its application in the prevention and control of marine Vibrio spp. and the development of antibacterial products. Full article

Cardiovascular diseases are a broadly understood concept focusing on vascular and heart dysfunction. Lack of physical exercise, type 2 diabetes, obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, thromboembolism, and kidney and lung diseases all contribute to the development of heart and blood vessel dysfunction. Although effective and important, traditional treatment with diuretics, statins, beta blockers, calcium inhibitors, ACE inhibitors, and anti-platelet drugs remains a second-line treatment after dietary interventions and lifestyle changes. Scientists worldwide are still looking for an herbal product that would be effective and free from side effects, either taken together with or before the standard pharmacological intervention. Such herbal-originated medication therapy may include Morus alba L. (white mulberry), Elaeagnus rhamnoides (L.) A. Nelson (sea-buckthorn), Allium sativum L. (garlic), Convallaria majalis L. (lily of the valley), Leonurus cardiaca L. (motherwort), and Crataegus spp. (hawthorn). Valuable herbal raw materials include leaves, fruits, seeds, and even thorns. This short review focuses on six herbs that can constitute an interesting and potential therapeutic option in the management of cardiovascular disorders. Full article

The composition and structure of soil seed banks provide insight into the long-term implications of plant invasions on resident communities. The effect of Salpichroa origanifolia (Sa) on the seed bank of a coastal mesophile forest (Tuscany) was studied by growing Sa-rhizomes in soils from low and high invaded sites, in full sun and canopy shade. Sa growth patterns, and the composition, biomass, nitrogen, and phosphorus contents of seedlings which emerged from seed banks were determined. Seed bank abundance and richness were also determined from under and 2 m apart established Sa populations. Sa plants’ leaf traits and biomass allocation changed in response to light conditions. The germination of seed bank seedlings was not affected or even promoted by Sa, while their biomass as well as N and P uptake were more than halved in both light conditions, leading to a progressive depletion of the forest seed bank. Richness was lower under established Sa populations. Sa seedlings exerted a greater suppression on residents than Sa adults, and these appeared more competitive against their own seedlings than on residents. Sa is an invader of concern for Mediterranean forests because of its adaptability to shaded conditions, the competitiveness of its seedlings, and its vegetative spread by means of rhizomes. Full article

Conventionally, cathode current collectors for lithium-ion batteries (LIB) consist of an aluminum foil generally manufactured by a rolling process. In the present work, a novel one-step manufacturing method of structured aluminum foil current collectors for lithium-ion batteries by electroforming is introduced. For this, a low-temperature chloride-based ionic liquid was used as an electrolyte and a rotating cylinder out of stainless steel as a temporary substrate. It was shown that the structure of the aluminum foils can be adjusted from dense and flat to three-dimensional by choosing an appropriate substrate rotation speed and current density. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and white light interferometry (WLI) were utilized to analyze the foils’ surface morphology, structure and topography. The SEM analysis of the aluminum foils showed that the rolling process produced a foil with small grains, while electrodeposition resulted in foils with different degrees of grain growth and seed formation. This was in total agreement with WLI results that revealed significant differences in terms of roughness parameters, including the peak-to-valley difference R_pv, the root-mean-square roughness R_q and the arithmetic mean roughness R_a. These were, respectively, equal to 6.8 µm, 0.35 µm and 0.279 µm for the state-of-the-art foil and up to 96.6 µm, 10.92 µm and 8.783 µm for the structured electroformed foil. Additionally, cyclic voltammetry (CV) of the aluminum foils was used to investigate their passivation behavior within the typical LIB cathode potential operation window. The strong decrease in the current density during the second cycle compared to the first cycle, where an anodic peak appeared between 4.0 and 4.4 V vs. Li/Li⁺, demonstrated that passivation occurs in the same manner as observed for commercial Al current collectors. Full article

Bumblebees are valuable generalist pollinators. However, micro- and macro-stressors on bumblebees negatively impact both foraging efficiency and pollination efficacy. Given that colonies have a resource threshold for successful reproduction, factors that decrease foraging efficiency could negatively impact conservation efforts. Recently, agrochemical odor pollution has been shown to hinder floral odor learning and recognition in Bombus impatiens via an associative odor learning assay (FMPER). These results may have implications for the field foraging behavior of bumblebees. Building on this prior work, our study aimed to determine if negative effects of fungicides on associative odor learning and recognition scale up to negative impacts on actively foraging bumblebees. These experiments investigated whether the presence of a background fungicide odor (Reliant^® Systemic Fungicide) impacts the location of a learned floral resource (lily of the valley-scented blue flowers) in a wind tunnel. Experiments were run with and without early access to visual cues to determine if fungicide odor pollution is more impactful on bees that are engaged in olfactory versus visual navigation. Fungicide odor pollution reduced landing frequency in both paradigms. Full article

The plant “False Lily of the Valley”, Speirantha gardenii is restricted to south-east China and considered as an endemic plant. Due to its limited availability, this plant was less studied. Hence, this study is focused on its molecular studies, where we have sequenced the complete chloroplast genome of S. gardenii and this is the first report on the chloroplast genome sequence of Speirantha. The complete S. gardenii chloroplast genome is of 156,869 bp in length with 37.6% GC, which included a pair of inverted repeats (IRs) each of 26,437 bp that separated a large single-copy (LSC) region of 85,368 bp and a small single-copy (SSC) region of 18,627 bp. The chloroplast genome comprises 81 protein-coding genes, 30 tRNA and four rRNA unique genes. Furthermore, a total of 699 repeats and 805 simple-sequence repeats (SSRs) markers are identified in the genome. Additionally, K_A/K_S nucleotide substitution analysis showed that seven protein-coding genes have highly diverged and identified nine amino acid sites under potentially positive selection in these genes. Phylogenetic analyses suggest that S. gardenii species has a closer genetic relationship to the Reineckea, Rohdea and Convallaria genera. The present study will provide insights into developing a lineage-specific marker for genetic diversity and gene evolution studies in the Nolinoideae taxa. Full article

The origin of agricultural products is gaining in appreciation while often hard to determine for various reasons. Geographical origin may be resolved using a combination of chemical and physical analytical technologies. In the present case of Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis) rhizomes, we investigated an exploratory set of material from The Netherlands, three other European (EU) countries and China. We show that the geographical origin is correlated to patterns of stable isotope ratios (isotope fingerprints) and volatile organic carbon (VOC) compounds (chemical fingerprints). These fingerprints allowed clear distinction using exploratory and supervised statistics. Isotope ratio mass spectrometry of ¹²C/¹³C, ¹⁴N/¹⁵N and ¹⁶O/¹⁸O isotopes separated materials from Europe and China successfully. The VOC patterns measured by Proton Transfer Reaction Mass Spectrometry (PTR-MS) allowed distinction of three groups: material from The Netherlands, the other EU countries and China. This knowledge is expected to help developing a systematic and efficient analytical tool for authenticating the origin of flower bulbs. Full article