PARTE UTILIZADA= Used part: Jugo.

ACCIÓN FARMACOLÓGICA= Pharmacological action: Se emplea para curar llagas, herpes, callos y verrugas; purgante.

COMPOSICIÓN QUÍMICA= Chemical composition: From a pro-inflammatory active ext. of Euphorbia peplus, two new diterpene polyesters I and II based on the pepluane and jatrophane skeletons were isolated, together with four known ingenane and jatrophane diterpenes. The structures were detd. on the basis of extensive NMR studies. Ingenol 3-angelate, which was obtained for the first time from this plant, is an irritant toxin with high activity.

ZONA GEOGRAFICA= Geografical zone: Uruguay. 

DIVERSIDAD GENÉTICA Y MEJORAMIENTO DE PLANTAS MEDICINALES= Medicinal plants and improvement of medicinal herbs:

Background and Aims After the initial boom in the application of flow cytometry in plant sciences in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which was accompanied by development of many nuclear isolation buffers, only a few efforts were made to develop new buffer formulas.  In this work, recent data on the performance of nuclear isolation buffers are utilized in order to develop new buffers, general purpose buffer (GPB) and woody plant buffer (WPB), for plant DNA flow cytometry.  Methods GPB and WPB were used to prep. samples for flow cytometric anal. of nuclear DNA content in a set of 37 plant species that included herbaceous and woody taxa with leaf tissues differing in structure and chem. compn.  The following parameters of isolated nuclei were assessed: forward and side light scatter, propidium iodide fluorescence, coeff. of variation of DNA peaks, quantity of debris background, and the no. of particles released from sample tissue.  The nuclear genome size of 30 selected species was also estd. using the buffer that performed better for a given species.  Key Results In unproblematic species, the use of both buffers resulted in high quality samples.  The anal. of samples obtained with GPB usually resulted in histograms of DNA content with higher or similar resoln. than those prepd. with the WPB.  In more recalcitrant tissues, such as those from woody plants, WPB performed better and GPB failed to provide acceptable results in some cases.  Improved resoln. of DNA content histograms in comparison with previously published buffers was achieved in most of the species analyzed.  Conclusions WPB is a reliable buffer which is also suitable for the anal. of problematic tissues/species.  Although GPB failed with some plant species, it provided high-quality DNA histograms in species from which nuclear suspensions are easy to prep.  The results indicate that even with a broad range of species, either GPB or WPB is suitable for prepn. of high-quality suspensions of intact nuclei suitable for DNA flow cytometry.  

1) TOURSARKISSIAN, Martín. Plantas medicinales de Argentina : sus nombres botánicos, vulgares, usos y distribución geográfica. Buenos Aires : Hemisferio Sur,1980, p.52.

2) FREISE, Fred. W. Essential oils from Brazilian Euphorbiaceae. Perfumery and Essential Oil Record. 1935, vol.26, p.219-20.
 
3) OUTLAW, William H., Jr.; TARCZYNSKI, Mitchell C.; ANDERSON, Loran C. Taxonomic survey for the presence of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase activity in guard cells.  Plant Physiology. 1982, vol.70, nº4, p.1218-1220.