Herbs, medicine, cyclotides & pass the Violet Tea

[Michaelangelica]

Anyone subscribing to this thread or am I talking to myself?

QUOTE]Home Remedies for Tonsillitis.
By John Hank(John Hank)
Banafsha flowers, botanically known as Viola odorata, are beneficial in the treatment of tonsillitis. About 12 gm of these flowers should be boiled in 50 ml of milk. This milk should be taken hot after being filtered. ...
Home Natural Remedies - Home Natural Remedies-Home Remedy, Natural Cure,Prevention from Diseases

[/QUOTE]

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

Anyone subscribing to this thread or am I talking to myself?

Are the two mutually exclusive? I don't subsribe to threads anymore, but do stay read on those which are updated.

[Chacmool]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

Anyone subscribing to this thread or am I talking to myself?

Please carry on; I find it very interesting. I just haven't yet had anything equally interesting to add.

[Michaelangelica]

A well written comprehensive article on violets as a medicine, mostly historical.
Stormsong.org- > R'Chel Enterprises > Herbs & Supplies > Herbs > Blue Violet Leaf 1oz-Premier retail supplier for all witches, pagans and wiccans.

[Michaelangelica]

Pages of photos of some of the very many varieties of Violet
Image Gallery Results | USDA PLANTS

[Michaelangelica]

Viola odorata - Plants For A Future database report

When added to soup they thicken it in much the same way as okra[62, 85, 159].
Also used as a flavouring in puddings etc.
A tea can be made from the leaves[85]. Flowers - raw. Used to decorate salads and desserts[5, 9, 85].
A sweet mild flavour with a delicate perfume, the flowers are an especially welcome decoration for the salad bowl since they are available in late winter[K]. The flowers are also used fresh to flavour and colour confectionery[238].
A soothing tea can be made from the leaves and flowers[85, 183]. A leaf extract is used to flavour sweets, baked goods and ice cream[183].
. . .
All members of this genus have more or less edible leaves and flower buds, though those species with yellow flowers can cause diarrhoea if eaten in large quantities[62, 85, 159].

Violet Society Journal Index

Sweet Violets the home of Violets

Stir fried violets
Violet Society Summer 2000 Culinary Page by Jill Ann Williams

[Michaelangelica]

Sorry about the above "cut and paste". I thought i was just getting pictures.
Still it is a great website if you are interested in violets

Please no more death threats from moderators!

I just found a double mauve parma violet pop up in my garden. It was like finding a new baby in the cabbage patch. ! So exciting!i am sneaking a little water out to it. Fantastic fragrance. Violets are seeding and popping up everywhere. I just don't figure; nothing else want to grow in pH 9 soil.

This was from left field (like the baseball terminology?)

NEWS.com.au Network

The Australian

October 01, 2007 07:50pm AEST

THE AUSTRALIAN

Breaking News

By Tamara McLean | September 25, 2007

A CHINESE herb used for centuries to treat snakebites and boils is showing promise as a new therapy in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Australian, US and European scientists have found that an Asian violet known as Viola yedoensis contains tiny proteins which appear to kill off infected cells.

These anti-HIV and anti-bacterial qualities make the plant a target for new drug therapies to treat the HIV virus, which causes AIDS and is rapidly spreading in third world countries.

The ancient herb has been used for generations in China for the treatment of burns, inflammation, carbuncles, boils, snakebite, bronchitis and hepatitis.

University of Queensland researchers have presented new data at a major biological sciences meeting in Sydney showing the plant contains small proteins called cyclotides that may act as defensive agents.

The team tested the ability of the cyclotides by applying them to two sets of cells, one infected with HIV and the other virus-free.

Professor David Craik, from the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland, said the objective was to see how many of the cells infected with HIV were destroyed after the application of the cyclotides.

"The results were encouraging,'' Prof Craik said.

"The actions of the cyclotides are yet not fully understood and the research is at a very early stage.
''(But) it may be that we can use the lessons of nature to create synthetic drug designs to help people with the virus.''

There is a worldwide push to develop better anti-retrovirals to fight the disease and to make them more widely available, particularly in Africa where 4000 people are infected daily.

The research collaboration also involved the National Cancer Institute in the United States and the Division of Pharmacology at Uppsala University in Sweden.

It was presented at COMBIO 2007, a meeting of biochemistry and molecular biology specialists.

Moderators please note
If they are happy for me to send their article to all those guys (above) They can't complain about this plagiarism. Can they?

[Michaelangelica]

Cyclotides,
Formation of cyclotides and variations in cyclotide expression in Oldenlandia affinis suspension cultures.
Cyclotides, a family of disulfide-rich mini-proteins, show a wide range of biological activities,
Oldenlandia affinis,

Other papers by authors:
J Nat Prod. 2007 Dec 15; : 18081258
Anti-HIV Cyclotides from the Chinese Medicinal Herb Viola yedoensis.
[My paper] Conan Wang , Michelle Colgrave , Kirk Gustafson , David Ireland , Ulf Goransson , David Craik

Biochem J. 2006 Jul 27; : 16872274
A novel suite of cyclotides from Viola odorata: sequence variation and the implications for structure, function and stability.
[My paper] David Ireland , Michelle Colgrave , David Craik

[Michaelangelica]

Evaluation of anti-inflammatory activity of alcoholic extract from Viola tricolor.



[

B]Evaluation of anti-inflammatory activity of alcoholic extract from Viola tricolor.[/B]

Rev Med Chir Soc Med Nat Iasi. 2007 Apr-Jun;111(2):525-9

Authors: Toiu A, Pârvu AE, Oniga I, Tămaş M
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...?dopt=Abstract

AIM: Evaluation of anti-inflammatory actions of Viola tricolor aerial parts tincture. MATERIAL AND METHOD: The anti-inflammatory activity of the tincture from Viola tricolor aerial parts was tested in acute inflammation induced with oil of turpentine (i.m. 0.6 ml/100 g b.w.) in male Wistar rats. The results were compared with those from a positive control group with experimental inflammation and with those of a group treated with diclofenac (30 mg/100 g b.w.). We tested the effects by measuring total leukocyte count and differential leukocyte count, a test of in vitro phagocytosis and by the evaluation of nitric oxide (NO) synthesis measuring the metabolites (nitrites and nitrates). RESULTS: Viola tricolor extract (50 mg tincture/100 g b.w.) significantly reduced polymorphonuclear leukocytes and monocytes percentages and the activation of circulating phagocytes. Nitric oxide synthesis had a slight decrease. CONCLUSION: Viola tricolor extract had anti-inflammatory effect on bone marrow acute phase response.

PMID: 17983197 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[Michaelangelica]

NCBI
PubMed A service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
and the National Institutes of Health
My NCBI

Definition of Cytotoxic

Cytotoxic: Toxic to cells, cell-toxic, cell-killing. Any agent or process that kills cells. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are forms of cytotoxic therapy. They kill cells.

The prefix cyto- denotes a cell. It comes from the Greek kytos meaning hollow, as a cell or container. Toxic is from the Greek toxikon = arrow poison

.




1: J Nat Prod. 2007 Apr;70(4):643-7. Epub 2007 Mar 23.Click here to read Links
Mechanism of action of cytotoxic cyclotides: cycloviolacin O2 disrupts lipid membranes.
Svangård E, Burman R, Gunasekera S, Lövborg H, Gullbo J, Göransson U.

Division of Pharmacognosy, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Biomedical Centre, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

In recent years, the cyclotides have emerged as the largest family of naturally cyclized proteins.
Cyclotides display potent cytotoxic activity that varies with the structure of the proteins, and combined with their unique structure, they represent novel cytotoxic agents.
However, their mechanism of action is yet unknown.
In this work we show that disruption of cell membranes plays a crucial role in the cytotoxic effect of the cyclotide cycloviolacin O2 (1), which has been isolated from Viola odorata. Cell viability and morphology studies on the human lymphoma cell line U-937 GTB showed that cells exposed to 1 displayed disintegrated cell membranes within 5 min.
Functional studies on calcein-loaded HeLa cells and on liposomes showed rapid concentration-dependent release of their respective internal contents. The present results show that cyclotides have specific membrane-disrupting activity.

PMID: 17378610 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Related Articles

* Cycloviolacin H4, a hydrophobic cyclotide from Viola hederaceae. [J Nat Prod. 2006]
* Cyclotides: a novel type of cytotoxic agents. [Mol Cancer Ther. 2002]
* Key role of glutamic acid for the cytotoxic activity of the cyclotide cycloviolacin O2. [Cell Mol Life Sci. 2006]
* Anti-HIV cyclotides from the Chinese medicinal herb Viola yedoensis. [J Nat Prod. 2008]
* A novel suite of cyclotides from Viola odorata: sequence variation and the implications for structure, function and stability. [Biochem J. 2006]
* » See all Related Articles...

Mechanism of action of cytotoxic cyclotides: cyclo...[J Nat Prod. 2007] - PubMed Result