Isatis Research Articles

IDENTIFICATION OF DIFFERENTIALLY EXPRESSED SEQUENCES FROM TETRAPLOID ISATIS INDIGOTICA ROOTS TREATED BY FUSARIUM SOLANI

Isatis indigotica Fort. is a widely used Chinese medicinal herb. Root rot disease, induced by Fusarium solani f.sp glyeine, causes severe yield losses of this crop in northern China. In order to gain an insight into the response mechanism of tetraploid I. indigotica to F. solani infection, a subtractive suppression hybridization (SSH) cDNA library was constructed. SSH was performed with cDNA from I. indigotica root inoculated by water as the “driver” and by F. solani as the “tester”. A total of 160 clones in the SSH library were sequenced and found to represent 25 unigenes. BLASTX results reveal that 19 cDNAs had significant sequence similarity with known sequences in the NCBI database. The identified cDNAs encode proteins involved in cellular processes such as primary metabolism, signal transduction, defense and responses to pathogen, stress and transcription. Eight genes among those identified by the screening were selected for semi-quantitative RT-PCR to confirm the SSH result. The diversity of the putative functions of these genes indicates that infection of F. solani results in a complex response in I. indigotica plants.

Microelement Contents and Fatty Acid Compositions of some Isatis Species Seeds

Isatis species are important biennial, herbaceous shrubs represented by 40 taxa, of which 24 are endemic to Turkey. The chemical compounds found in leaves and roots of all Isatis species have medicinal properties and are used for treatment of a wide range of disorders. No study reports seed characteristics, microelement contents and fatty acid compositions of the seeds of any Isatis species except I. tinctoria. Therefore the study was carried out to find seed fatty oil, fatty acid compositions protein content, characteristics, and microelement contents of I. aucheri, I. cochlearis, I. constricta, I. demiriziana (endemic), I. glauca and I. lusitanica. The results showed fatty oil and protein content of these species in range of 2 to 10% and 16.07 to 25.17%, respectively. Furthermore, these seeds were rich in microelements Al, Ca, Fe, K, Mg, Na and P. Major fatty oil components of these species were determined as erucic, oleic, linoleic and linolenic acid; such that erucic acid content of these species ranged 16.94 to 30.52%.

Study on the Quality Control of Yinpian of Isatis Root

Objective To study the quality control of yinpian of Isatis Root.Methods Optical microscope was used to identify the microscopic features,TLC was adopted to identify the arginine in Isatis Root,and HPIC-ELSD was used to detect the quality of arginine.Results and Conclusion There is no difference between yinpian and crude powder of Isatis Root.Arginine can be detected bv TLC.The moisture contents.the total ash contents and the acid-insoluble ash contents in the yinpian should be less than 9.0%,10.0%,and 2.0% respectively;while the alcohol-soluble extractive contents and the contents of arginine in Isatis Root should be more than 25.0% and 2.01% respectively. Key words: Isatis Root; Arginine; TLC; HPLC-ELSD