ABSTRACT
From Senecio bicolor, ssp. cineraria, cultivated in middle Europe, seven pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PA) were isolated and their structures elucidated by spectroscopical methods. Besides the already known senecionine, integerrimine, seneciphylline, jacobine, jacoline and jaconine the jacobine-acetate was found. On account of structure toxicity relationship all PA show toxic side-effects.
Subject(s)
Pyrrolizidine Alkaloids/analysis , Senecio/chemistry , Europe , Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry , Homeopathy , Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy , Pyrrolizidine Alkaloids/toxicity , Structure-Activity RelationshipABSTRACT
Wound healing in healthy individuals proceeds at an optimal rate. However, in patients, with -- e.g.-- locally impaired blood flow or diabetes, chronic wounds develop and often become infected. Chronic wounds mean a low quality of life for the afflicted patients, not to mention enormous costs. Rather than using recombinant growth factors to accelerate wound healing, we employed the toll-like receptor agonist macrophage-activating lipopeptide-2 (MALP-2) to improve the healing of full-thickness excision skin wounds in an animal model with obese, diabetic mice. A gene array experiment suggested that MALP-2 stimulates the release of various mediators involved in wound healing. Further data to be presented in this study will show (i) that MALP-2 is capable of stimulating the appearance of the monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 at the wound site, (ii) that this leads to increased leucocyte and, in particular, macrophage infiltration and (iii) that MALP-2-treated wounds closed 2 weeks earlier than vehicle-treated controls. MALP-2, thus, appears to stimulate the early inflammatory process needed to set in motion the ensuing consecutive natural steps of wound healing resulting in wound closure.
