Assessing a Medicinally Important Common Indian Weed Growing in the Arsenic-Affected Areas of West Bengal, India, Considering Its Impact on Human Health
Euphorbia hirta is used traditionally for medicinal purposes. A vast stretch of land in West Bengal is arsenic affected, where agricultural activities present the hazard of arsenic entering the food chain putting the entire community at health risk. The present work tried to study if these areas cou...
Gespeichert in:
Veröffentlicht in: | Applied biochemistry and biotechnology 2022-07, Vol.194 (7), p.2872-2881 |
---|---|
Hauptverfasser: | , , , , |
Format: | Artikel |
Sprache: | eng |
Schlagworte: | |
Online-Zugang: | Volltext |
Tags: |
Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
|
Zusammenfassung: | Euphorbia hirta
is used traditionally for medicinal purposes. A vast stretch of land in West Bengal is arsenic affected, where agricultural activities present the hazard of arsenic entering the food chain putting the entire community at health risk. The present work tried to study if these areas could be safely utilized to grow this medicinal plant. In this study, the medicinal plant
Euphorbia hirta
and a known hyperaccumulator
Brassica juncea
were exposed to a high level of arsenic, and after a certain span of time, arsenic translocation in both the plants was checked. The data revealed that
Euphorbia hirta
is not a hyperaccumulator and does not translocate high levels of arsenic to the aerial parts of the plant as compared to
Brassica juncea
. It was also found that the biochemical and genetic effects of arsenic stress were enhanced significantly more in
Brassica juncea
than in
Euphorbia hirta
. Thus, the present study points to the growth potential of the common medicinal weed
Euphorbia hirta
in the arsenic-affected areas without being a cause of human health concern. |
---|---|
ISSN: | 0273-2289 1559-0291 |
DOI: | 10.1007/s12010-021-03754-y |