The genus Curcuma is a member of the ginger family (Zingiberaceae) that has recently become popular for use as flowering pot plants, both indoors and as patio and landscape plants. We used PCR-based molecular markers (SSRs) to elucidate genetic variation and relationships between five varieties of Curcuma (Curcuma alismatifolia) cultivated in Malaysia. Of the primers tested, 8 (of 17) SSR primers were selected for their reproducibility and high rates of polymorphism. The number of presumed alleles revealed by the SSR analysis ranged from two to six alleles, with a mean value of 3.25 alleles per locus. The values of HO and HE ranged from 0 to 0.8 (mean value of 0.2) and 0.1837 to 0.7755 (mean value of 0.5102), respectively. Eight SSR primers yielded 26 total amplified fragments and revealed high rates of polymorphism among the varieties studied. The polymorphic information content varied from 0.26 to 0.73. Dice's similarity coefficient was calculated for all pairwise comparisons and used to construct an unweighted pair group method with arithmetic average (UPGMA) dendrogram. Similarity coefficient values from 0.2105 to 0.6667 (with an average of 0.4386) were found among the five varieties examined. A cluster analysis of data using a UPGMA algorithm divided the five varieties/hybrids into 2 groups.
The present study was conducted in order to assess the effect of various doses of acute gamma irradiation (0, 10, 15, and 20 Gy) on the improvement of bioactive compounds and their antioxidant properties of Curcuma alismatifolia var. Sweet pink. The high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and gas chromatography (GC) analysis uncovered that various types of phenolic, flavonoid compounds, and fatty acids gradually altered in response to radiation doses. On the other hand, antioxidant activities determined by 1,1-Diphenyl-2-picryl-hydrazyl (DPPH), ferric reduction, antioxidant power (FRAP), and 2,2-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS) radical scavenging assay showed a higher irradiation level significantly increased the antioxidant properties. This study revealed an efficient effect of varying levels of gamma radiation, based on the pharmaceutical demand to enhance the accumulation and distribution of bioactive compounds such as phenolic and flavonoid compounds, fatty acids, as well as their antioxidant activities in the leaves of C. alismatifolia var. Sweet pink.
In this study the antioxidant and cytotoxicity activity of the Adonidia merrillii fruits were investigated using different solvent polarities (methanol, ethyl acetate and water). The results showed that the total phenolic and flavonoid contents of the methanolic extract was higher compare with other extract with respective values of 17.80 ± 0.45 mg gallic acid equivalents/g dry weight (DW) and 5.43 ± 0.33 mg rutin equivalents/g DW. Beside that The RP-HPLC analyses indicated the presence of gallic acid, pyrogallol, caffeic acid, vanillic acid, syringic acid, naringin and rutin. In the DPPH, NO2 and ABTS scavenging assays, the methanolic extract exhibited higher antioxidant activity as compared to the ethyl acetate and water extracts. The extracts exhibited moderate to weak cytotoxic activity in the assays using human hepatocytes (Chang liver cells) and NIH/3T3 (fibroblasts cell) cell lines. The findings showed the Adonidia merrillii fruit extracts to possess considerable antioxidant and cytotoxicity properties. The fruit, therefore, is a potential candidate for further work to discover antioxidant and cytotoxic drugs from natural sources.