Wild cotton

The yellow dye curcumin, [458-37-7] (Cl Natural Ye//oii> 3 Cl 75300) (41), also known as tumeric, occurs in the roots of the plant Curcuma tinctoria found growing wild in Asia. The dye was well known to the ancient Romans and Greeks who used it to dye wool, cotton, and silk. The dye is an oil-soluble bright yellow material, and is the only natural yellow dye that requires no mordant. It finds use as a colorant for baked goods such as cakes. 

Akhunov et al. (2008) purified chitin-specific PO with fungicidal activity from cotton and observed the increase of its activity in plants, penetrated by Verticillium dahliae. Golubenco et al. (2007) showed the presence of the chitin-binding PO isozyme in Hibiscus trionum, which activated dramatically after inoculation by V, dahliae. The plants of Nicotiana tabacum overexpressing the anionic PO (chitin-specific according to our data) were more resistant to Helicoverpa zea and Lasioderma serricorne as compared with the wild-type (Dowd et al., 2006). 

The germination stimulant or stimulants from host plants have not yet been identified, but research on isolation and identification of these allelopathic compounds continues. Other nonhost plants, such as cotton, also release chemicals which stimulate the germination of witchweed seed and these crops can replace the cereal crops in witchweed-infected fields. If no acceptable host is present, the witchweed plant is unable to mature and produce seed. The importance of cereal crops as a staple food in underdeveloped countries makes growth of nonhost crops only partially acceptable, and there are numerous wild hosts that allow the witchweed to germinate, mature, and produce more seed (several thousand seeds can be produced by a single plant). Nevertheless, application of either natural or synthetic stimulants in the absence of a host plant is an effective way of reducing and eventually eliminating the witchweed problem. 

Savabieasfahani, M., R.L. Lochmiller, D.P. Rafferty, and J.A. Sinclair. 1998. Sensitivity of wild cotton rats (Sigmodon hispidus) to the immunotoxic effects of low-level arsenic exposure. Arch. Environ. Contam. Toxicol. 34 289-296. 

Pelton, M.R. and E.E. Provost. 1969. Effects of radiation on survival of wild cotton rats (Sigmodon hispidus) in enclosed areas of natural habitat. Pages 39-45 in D J. Nelson and F.C. Evans (eds.). Symposium on Radioecology. Proceedings of the Second National Symposium. Available as CONF-670503 from The Clearinghouse for Federal Scientific and Technical Information, Natl. Bur. Standards, Springfield, VA 22151. 

In addition to the effect of mutations at Phe-82 on the stability of the cytochrome c active site, the intense, negative Soret Cotton effect in the circular dichroism spectrum of ferricytochrome c is profoundly affected by the presence of non-aromatic amino acid residues at this position [115]. Recent examination of six position-82 iso-l-ferricytochrome c mutants establishes that while Tyr-82 exhibits a Soret CD spectrum closely similar to that of the wild-type protein, the intensity of the negative Soret Cotton affect varies with the identity of the residue at this position in the order Phe > Tyr > Gly > Ser = Ala > Leu > He, though the Ser, Ala, He, and Leu variants have effectively no negative Soret Cotton effect [108]. 

TA in wild cottons. Many wild cottons have TA contents similar to those of G. barbadense. Thus, 30-80% methylation of terpenoids and a predominance of ocimene-derived heliocides also occurs in anomalum. . bickii. . capitis-viridis. G. darwinii. lonoicalvx. G. tomentosum and G. sturtianum (121. In the latter two species, the TA quinone concentrations are much greater than the heliocide concentrations, indicating that very little ocimene or myrcene is formed in these species. 

The wild New World diploid cottons contain two TA patterns not found in other species. Ten of these 12 species contain only gossypol or gossypol and its methyl ethers in pigment glands of all tissues (12 ). Thus, the enzyme necessary for formation of TA quinones apparently is absent from green tissues in these species. 

Terpenes in Asiatic and wild cottons. Volatile terpene profiles also were measured in two collections of the African wild cotton, . anomalum. and in four collections of the Asiatic cotton, arboreum. Both species lacked or had very low levels ofY-bisabolene and s-bisabolol (Table III). The Asiatic cottons also contained large percentages (7.5-33.0%) of caryophyl 1 ene oxide. We recently began to study the volatile terpenes in New World wild species. These preliminary studies indicate that species that lack hemigossypoione also are devoid of all volatile terpenes. We have no explanation for this interesting relationship. 

It was observed that flower buds from certain wild and primitive cottons showed more Insecticidal activity than could be accounted for by gossypol, and the additional activity was ascribed to "X factors (, 7). The "X" factors were Identified... 

Pollen grains from FAA-preserved flowers on wild and greenhouse-grown plants were analyzed for cytoplasm stainability. Sterile or aborted pollen grains did not take up the cotton blue-lactophenol stain, and were also conspicuous by their shrunken size and shriveled form. 

Environmental Impacts Methyl parathion is highly toxic for aquatic invertebrates , and moderately toxic to mammals such as rats, dogs and rabbits . The chemical has been implicated in the deaths of waterfowl and the acute poisoning of fish, birds, cattle and wild animals. In 1995 a mixture of methyl parathion and endosulfan led to the death of over 240,000 fish in Alabama, when heavy rain washed the pesticides washed from the cotton fields and into rivers . 

Botanical and agronomical aspects of cotton are treated in The Wild and Cultivated Cotton Plants of the World by Sir George Watt (104) The Development and Properties of Raw Cotton (90) and Studies in the Quality of Cotton (Pf) by W. Lawrence Balls, one of the deans of the cotton industry in Cotton History, Species, Variety, Morphology, Breeding, Culture, Diseases, Marketing and Uses by H. B. Brown (95) and in The Evolution of Gossypium by Hutchinson, Silow, and Stephens (96). 

Watt, George, The Wild and Cultivated Cotton Plants of the World, London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1907. 

Condensed Proanthocyanidins (Tannins). A representative structure of tte condensed proanthocyam dins (tannin) formed in cotton is shown in Fig. 3. Cotton tannins contain mixtures of catechin, epicatechin, gallocatechin and epigallocatechin moieties in the polymers. The free catechins also occur, but in lower concentrations than the tannins. The ratio of catechin to gallocatechin moieties in the polymer generally varies from 1 1 to 1 4 in different cultivated cottons. Very little gallocatechin occurs in some of the wild species. 

The increased resistance of some primitive and wild strains of cotton to bollworms and tobacco budworms has been attributed to certain terpenoids. Some of these were isolated from flower bud extracts and have been identified as hemigossypolone (64), heliocide H2 (65), heliocide H3 (66), heliocide H, (67) and heliocide M (68). 

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