Medicinal Botany 2
Terms
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- Secondary Compound
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Not made for basic metabolism
May occur in special cells
May not be necessary for cell function
Complex chemicals
May not be useful for the plant as a whole - Secondary Compounds can be...
- pigments, scents, terpenes, waxes, alkaloides and glycosides.
- Colors and component
- Chlorophyll (photosynthesis/ green), carotenoids (precursor to vitamin A/ orange yellow and red), phytochromes (photoreceptors), anthocyanins (purple and blue), and betalains (red and yellow).
- Terpenes
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Hydrocarbons
End products that becomes precursor to other compounds. - wax
- Long chain of hydrocarbon molecules
- alkaloids
- nitrogen containing compounds that are heterocyclic ("Ring of carbon") and have many toxic and medicinal properties.
- glycocides
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sugar bounded to non-carbon portion
Toxic (neurotoxin and saponine) - Why plants produce these:
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Pigments and scents (reproduction success)
Protection from herbivores
Protection from disease
Allelopathy (reduce competition)
Protection from environment - Bioassay
- determination of the biological activity or potency of a substance, as a vitamin or hormone, by testing its effect on the growth of an organism.
- Main points of taxol essay:
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Bioassay
cyanogenic glycocides
chemosystemic principles (finding a chemical in an organism and looking in related organisms for that chemical in greater or more accurate forms.)
only 10% of plants have been screened for medicinal properties and usually only for certain chemicals
need to research plants more
interrelation between plants