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Enzymes from Pitcher Plant Could Prevent Bacterial and Fungal Infections
February 04, 2008 at 2:33 PM
Alternative Medicine News
Naoya Hatano from the Harima Institute in Riken and Tatsuro Hamada from Ishikawa Prefectural University in Japan, who have identified seven proteins in the carnivorous plant's fluid, suggest that their discovery could prove useful in warding off bacteria and controlling infections.
The ability to digest flesh has evolved independently across many plant lineages, leading to at least nine families and 600 species of carnivorous plants.
One type of carnivorous plant is the pitcher plant, which has developed several ingenious ways to trap its prey, which can be as small as insects, or as large as frogs, small birds, mice, and even rats. There are flypaper traps covered in a sticky excretion, hinged snap traps which snap shut when hairs are touched, suction traps, and lobster pot traps in the form of twisted tubular channels.
A fifth kind is the pitfall trap, which has slippery tips and sides. The prey is attracted both by colour and odour but invariably slips down into the digestive fluid at the bottom of the pitcher and cannot climb out. The struggle to escape triggers the release of digestive fluids and their fate is sealed.
Few enzymes responsible for this activity have been identified. For instance, in the Nepenthes family, which contains about 100 species of pitcher plants, only two proteinases have been identified in the pitcher fluid.
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I am studying the effects of the enzymes from this plant on microsporidium infections.