leonurus japonicus/nicotine

Medicinal plants are valuable resources of natural antimicrobial materials. A novel small protein with antimicrobial activities, designated LJAMP1, was purified from the seeds of a medicinal herb, motherwort (Leonurus japonicus Houtt). LJAMP1 is a heat-stable protein with a molecular mass of 7.8 kDa

In screening for potent antimicrobial proteins (AMPs) from plant seeds, we had purified a heat-stable AMP, LJAMP2, from the seeds of a medicine herb, motherwort (Leonurus japonicus Houtt). In an in vitro assay, the protein can inhibit the growth of both fungi and bacteria. Then a cDNA encoding

LJAMP1 is a small antimicrobial protein purified previously from the seeds of motherwort, and it is expressed preferentially in seeds. A 794-bp upstream sequence of the ATG start codon was isolated using a genome walking method and cloned into the upstream of the β-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter gene