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Ecological cultivation is a promising regime for medicinal plant production. For a long time, unreasonable farming methods have threatened soil health and medicinal agriculture and restricted the sustainable development of ecological agriculture for medicinal plants. However, there is a lack of comprehensive discourse and discussion about the pros and cons of different tillage regimes. Here, the research trend and application prospects of no-tillage (NT) are comprehensively reviewed, and the ecological benefits, challenges, and opportunities of the NT system in ecological agriculture of medicinal plants are scrutinized, aiming to call for an about-face in the sustainable conservation and utilization of both phytomedicine resources and agricultural/ecological resources. An exhaustive literature search in PubMed, Bing, Scopus, and CNKI was performed to outline the research trend in conservation tillage and medicinal plants during the recent four decades. The application of NT has a long history and can reduce tillage frequency and intensity and protect soil from erosion and deterioration. NT is often combined with organic mulch to significantly reduce soil disturbance. NT and stover mulching have the advantages of saving manpower and resources and improving soil quality, crop yield, and quality. The ecological and economic benefits of NT in long-term medicinal plant cultivation could be prominent. In developing medicinal plant cultivation, competing with food crops should be avoided as much as possible, and the impact on the production of major grain crops should be minimized. Therefore, the full utilization of soil resources in forests, mountains, and wasteland is advocated, and sustainable soil utilization is the core issue in the process of land reclamation. NT and stover mulching not only inherit the traditional concept of "natural farming", conform to the basic laws of ecology, as well as the growth characteristics of medicinal plants, but also protect the ecological environment of the production area. It would become the core strategy of ecological agriculture for medicinal plants. Our summary and discussions would help propose countermeasures to popularize NT and organic mulch, promote relevant research and scientific allocation of resources, and adapt to local conditions to achieve precise management and harmonize conservation and production of medicinal plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some natural alkaloids from medicinal plants, such as yohimbine and its derivatives, have been reported with adrenoceptor (AR) α2 subtypes inhibiting activity. In trying to address the possible mechanism of the action, a set of homology models of AR α2 was built based on MOE. After that, docking and molecular dynamics methods were used to investigate the binding modes of yohimbine and its 2 derivatives in the active pocket of adrenoceptor α2 subtype A, B, and C. The key interactions between the 3 ligands and the 3 receptors were mapped. Binding mode analysis presents a strong identity in the key residues in each subtype. Only a few differences play the key role in modulating selectivity of yohimbine and its derivatives. These results can guide the design of new selective AR α2 inhibitors.

The medicinal properties of plants can be evolutionarily predicted by phylogeny-based methods, which, however, have not been used to explore the regularity of therapeutic effects of Chinese plants utilized by ethnic minorities. This study aims at exploring the distribution law of therapeutic efficacy of Ranunculales plants on the phylogenetic tree of Chinese species. We collected therapeutic efficacy data of 551 ethnomedicinal species belonging to five species-rich families of Ranunculales; these therapeutic data were divided into 15 categories according to the impacted tissues and organs. The phylogenetic tree of angiosperm species was used to analyze the phylogenetic signals of ethnomedicinal plants by calculating the net relatedness index (NRI) and nearest taxon index (NTI) in R language. The NRI results revealed a clustered structure for eight medicinal categories (poisoning/intoxication, circulatory, gastrointestinal, eyesight, oral, pediatric, skin, and urinary disorders) and overdispersion for the remaining seven (neurological, general, hepatobiliary, musculoskeletal, otolaryngologic, reproductive, and respiratory disorders), while the NTI metric identified the clustered structure for all. Statistically, NRI and NTI values were significant in 5 and 11 categories, respectively. It was found that Mahonia eurybracteata has therapeutic effects on all categories. iTOL was used to visualize the distribution of treatment efficacy on species phylogenetic trees. By figuring out the distribution of therapeutic effects of Ranunculales medicinal plants, the importance of phylogenetic methods in finding potential medicinal resources is highlighted; NRI, NTI, and similar indices can be calculated to help find taxonomic groups with medicinal efficacy based on the phylogenetic tree of flora in different geographic regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), especially high molecular weight PAHs, are carcinogenic and mutagenic organic compounds that are difficult to degrade. Microbial remediation is a popular method for the PAH removal in diverse environments and yet it is limited by the lack of electron acceptors. An emerging solution is to use the microbial electrochemical system, in which the solid anode is used as an inexhaustible electron acceptor and the microbial activity is stimulated by biocurrent in situ to ensure the PAH removal and avoid the defects of bioremediation. Based on the extensive investigation of recent literatures, this paper summarizes and comments on the research progress of PAH removal by the microbial electrochemical system of diversified design, enhanced measures and functional microorganisms. First, the bioelectrochemical degradation of PAHs is reviewed in separate and mixed PAH degradation, and the removal performance of PAHs in different system configurations is compared with the anode modification, the enhancement of substrate and electron transfer, the addition of chemical reagents, and the combination with phytoremediation. Second, the key functional microbiota including PAH degrading microbes and exoelectrogens are overviewed as well as the reduced microbes without competitive advantage. Finally, the typical representations of electrochemical activity especially the internal resistance, power density and current density of systems and influence factors are reviewed with the correlation analysis between PAH removal and energy generation. Presently, most studies focused on the anode modification in the bioelectrochemical degradation of PAHs and actually more attentions need to be paid to enhance the mass transfer and thus larger remediation radius, and other smart designs are also proposed, especially that the combined use of phytoremediation could be an eco-friendly and sustainable approach. Additionally, exoelectrogens and PAH degraders are partially overlapping, but the exact functional mechanisms of interaction network are still elusive, which could be revealed with the aid of advanced bioinformatics technology. In order to optimize the efficacy of functional community, more advanced techniques such as omics technology, photoelectrocatalysis and nanotechnology should be considered in the future research to improve the energy generation and PAH biodegradation rate simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]