Tripterygium

Not to be confused with the fish genus Tripterygion.
Tripterygium
Tripterygium regelii
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Rosids
Order: Celastrales
Family: Celastraceae
Genus: Tripterygium
Species

Tripterygium wilfordii
...

Tripterygium is a genus of plants in the Celastraceae family.T. wilfordii; (Chin. 雷公藤) pinyin: lei gong teng, sometimes called "Thunder God Vine," is used in Traditional Chinese medicine.

"Tripterygium wilfordii Hook.f., known as Leigongteng (Thunder God Vine) in traditional Chinese medicine, has attracted much attention for its applications in relieving autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus, and for treating cancer. Molecular analyses of the ITS and 5S rDNA sequences indicate that T. hypoglaucum and T. doianum are not distinct from T. wilfordii, while T. regelii should be recognized as a separate species. The results also demonstrate potential value of rDNA sequence data in forensic detection of adulterants derived from Celastrus angulatus in commercial samples of Leigongteng."[1]

Selected species

Footnotes

  1. Law et al (2010), p. 21.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 3/17/2013. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.