The Foxgloves (Digitalis) Revisited.

This review provides a renewed look at the genus Digitalis. Emphasis will be put on those issues that attracted the most attention or even went through paradigmatic changes since the turn of the millennium. PubMed and Google Scholar were used ("Digitalis" and "Foxglove" were the key words) to identify research from 2000 till 2017 containing data relevant enough to be presented here. Intriguing new results emerged from studies related to the phylogeny and taxonomy of the genus as well as to the biosynthesis and potential medicinal uses of the key active compounds, the cardiac glycosides. Several Eastern and Western Foxgloves were studied with respect to their propagation in vitro. In this context, molecular biology tools were applied and phytochemical analyses were conducted. Structure elucidation and analytical methods, which have experienced less exciting progress, will not be considered here in great detail.

Comprehensive analysis of alternative splicing in Digitalis purpurea by strand-specific RNA-Seq.

Digitalis purpurea (D. purpurea) is one of the most important medicinal plants and is well known in the treatment of heart failure because of the cardiac glycosides that are its main active compounds. However, in the absence of strand specific sequencing information, the post-transcriptional mechanism of gene regulation in D. purpurea thus far remains unknown. In this study, a strand-specific RNA-Seq library was constructed and sequenced using Illumina HiSeq platforms to characterize the transcriptome of D. purpurea with a focus on alternative splicing (AS) events and the effect of AS on protein domains. De novo RNA-Seq assembly resulted in 48,475 genes. Based on the assembled transcripts, we reported a list of 3,265 AS genes, including 5,408 AS events in D. purpurea. Interestingly, both glycosyltransferases and monooxygenase, which were involved in the biosynthesis of cardiac glycosides, are regulated by AS. A total of 2,422 AS events occurred in coding regions, and 959 AS events were located in the regions of 882 unique protein domains, which could affect protein function. This D. purpurea transcriptome study substantially increased the expressed sequence resource and presented a better understanding of post-transcriptional regulation to further facilitate the medicinal applications of D. purpurea for human health.

Rapid identification of Digitalis purpurea using near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy.

Glycosides from Digitalis are widely used for the treatment of various cardiac conditions. The potential for near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy as a technique for the rapid identification of Digitalis purpurea was studied. If successful, this method would be advantageous over traditional methods which are destructive and time-consuming. It was possible to identify D. purpurea from other plants using a Maximum Distance in Wavelength Space statistical comparison method on standard normal variate-corrected, second-derivative spectra. Match values ranged from 1.65 to 2.26 for correct identification and were greater than 11.2 [corrected] for other plants. It was also possible to discriminate between different plant parts of D. purpurea, with match values ranging from 1.52 to 2-26 for leaves and greater than 29 for other parts of the same plant. The use of correlation coefficients and the Correlation in Wavelength Space methods proved less conclusive, with resulting values for leaves from different plants being very high, and in all but one case, above 0.9. A two-wavelength, nearest neighbours analysis was carried out for de-trended (baseline corrected), standard normal variate-corrected spectra at 1150 and 2160 nm. This resulted in the successful identification of unknown samples. NIR spectroscopy has the potential for the rapid identification of D. purpurea, and possibly for other natural products of pharmaceutical interest.