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

The largest family of flowering plants Asteraceae (Compositae) is found to contain 12 major lineages rather than 5 as previously suggested. Five of these lineages heretofore had been circumscribed in tribe Mutisieae (Cichorioideae), a taxon shown by earlier mol. studies to be paraphyletic and to include some of the deepest divergences of the family. Combined analyses of 10 chloroplast DNA loci by different phylogenetic methods yielded highly congruent well-resolved trees with 95% of the branches receiving moderate to strong statistical support. A strategy of sampling genera identified by morphol. studies as anomalous, supported by broader character sampling than previous studies, resulted in identification of several novel clades. The generic compns. of subfamilies Carduoideae, Gochnatioideae, Hecastocleidoideae, Mutisioideae, Pertyoideae, Stifftioideae, and Wunderlichioideae are novel in Asteraceae systematics and the taxonomy of the family has been revised to reflect only monophyletic groups. These results contradict earlier hypotheses that early divergences in the family took place on and spread from the Guayana Highlands (Pantepui Province of northern South America) and raise new hypotheses about how Asteraceae dispersed out of the continent of their origin. Several nodes of this new phylogeny illustrate the vast differential in success of sister lineages suggesting focal points for future study of species diversification. The results also provide a backbone exemplar of Asteraceae for supertree construction. Sequence data are deposited in GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ under accession nos. EU243147-EU243239, EU243242-EU243334, and EU384938-EU385604.

Summary
Cyclolepis genistoides (Asteraceae) is a native shrub mostly found as part of the dry vegetation in the Chaco and Patagonia regions. Popularily known by the name of palo azul, the aerial parts are used as a diuretic, which could be justified by the presence of oleanolic acid. Betulinic acid, a natural product of proven cytotoxic activity in melanoma, is also present in this species. This fact makes C. genistoides a species of interest to the field of experimental oncology. The lactone deacylcynaropicrin together with oleanolic acid isolated from ethyl acetate extract, have shown anti-inflammatory activity.

PARTE UTILIZADA= Used part: Partes aéreas. 

ACCIÓN FARMACOLÓGICA= Pharmacological action: Diurético, antirreumático, tratamiento renal, cólicos hepáticos, eliminar el ácido úrico.

COMPOSICIÓN QUÍMICA= Chemical composition: Aerial parts of Cyclolepis genistoides afforded a number of oleananes and ursanes including the new 12α,13alpha-epoxyoleanolic acid, lupanes including 3beta,30-dihydroxylup-20(29)-ene and the new 28-dihydroxylup-20(29)- en-30-al and the sesquiterpene lactones deacylcynaropicrin, dihydroeleganin and isolippidiol. 

ZONA GEOGRÁFICA= Geografical zone: Paraguay, N. y centro de Argentina. 

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Enfermedad o síntoma
Problemas renales

Parte utilizada
Hoja y tallo

Forma de preparación
Infusión con zarzaparrilla y mil hombres

Modo de administración
Vía oral

Origen
Tucumán, Argentina

1) TOURSARKISSIAN, Martín. Plantas medicinales de Argentina : sus nombres botánicos, vulgares, usos y distribución geográfica. Buenos Aires : Hemisferio Sur, 1980, p.28.

2) DE HELAUANI, C.S., et al. Triterpenes and sesquiterpene lactones from Cyclolepis genistoides. Phytochemistry. 1997, vol.45, nº4, p.801-805.
     
3) PANERO, Jose L.; FUNK, V. A. The value of sampling anomalous taxa in phylogenetic studies: Major clades of the Asteraceae revealed. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 2008, vol.47, nº2, p.757-782.

4) ALONSO, Jorge ; DESMARCHELIER, Cristian. Plantas medicinales autóctonas de la Argentina : bases científicas para su aplicación en atención primaria de la salud.  Buenos Aires: L.O.L.A, 2005, p. 383.

5) Plantas medicinales autóctonas de la Argentina. Bases científicas para su aplicación en atención primaria de la salud / Jorge Alonso y Cristian Jorge Desmarchelier. - 1a ed. - Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires: Corpus Libros Médicos y Científicos, 2015.

6) Ceballos, Sergio J.; Perea Mario C./ Boletín Latinoamericano y del Caribe de Plantas Medicinales y Aromáticas, vol 13, no 1, 2014. - p. 47 - 68