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Radioprotective drugs of plant origin with bioactives are a boon against ionizing radiation injuries. Tragia involucrata L. (Indian stinging nettle), has medicinal properties and is traditionally used to treat various ailments. Here, we evaluated the radioprotective efficacy of the methanolic whole plant extract of T. involucrata against the damaging effects of gamma radiation. Cultured lymphocytes were treated with methanolic extract for one hour and irradiated with (1-4 Gy) gamma radiation. This pretreatment of lymphocytes with methanolic extract significantly increased the cell viability at 10 µg/mL and reduced the damage to the treated cells compared to the radiation control. In addition, a significant decrease in comet parameters (Comet length and percent DNA in tail and olive moment) and formation of micronuclei (P <0.001) were observed. It also decreased the levels of malondialdehyde, while regulating the status of the total antioxidant capacity, superoxide dismutase, catalase, reduced glutathione, and glutathione transferase (P <0.05) when compared to the radiation control. Similarly, a decrease in caspase 3 cellular activity compared to the radiation control was observed. The results indicated the methanolic extract to be an effective radioprotector up to 4 Gy, by enhancing the antioxidant enzyme levels, scavenging the production of reactive oxygen species, reducing the damaging effects of radiation by increasing the DNA repair mechanism, and by inhibiting the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway. Therefore, methanolic extract of the Indian stinging nettle, Tragia involucrata L. has been proposed as a candidate with a radioprotective property, and further study on animal models would strengthen this claim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effect of AC electric field on mulberry (bivoltine) and tassar silk fibres has been studied using X-ray scattering technique. Microstructural parameters are computed using line profile analysis for fibres subjected to various magnitudes of AC electric fields. Crystallite shape ellipsoids obtained from these analyses have been compared. By adopting the axial stress equation for a fibre, the findings have been used to explain the behaviour of silk in the presence of an external electric field. The variations in microstructural parameters of the samples in the applied electric field gradient reveal the fact that there is deformation of samples from the varying electric field which is equivalent to a non-hydrodynamic compression. The increase in the elastic modulus parameters is due to two factors, namely (i) the presence of varying electric field and (ii) the polymer network (crystallite) strengthening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wide angle X-ray scattering data recorded from the coarse and fine fibres of mulberry and non-mulberry silk, like muga, tassar and eri, have been used along with exponential, Reinhold and Lognormal functions for crystal size distributions to determine the microstructural parameters and hence to compute the shape of the crystallite ellipsoid. The estimated microstructural parameters have been correlated with the reported physical parameters like tenacity and toughness of silk fibres. It is observed that the tenacity decreases with the increase in crystal size for both mulberry and non-mulberry silk fibres, which essentially reflects the fact that ordering in the lattice may not be a favoured factor in the textile industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]