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Probing the Effective and Toxic Principles of Four Herbal Galactagogues – this study investigated these commonly used herbal galactagogues in promoting breastmilk production: oat’s rue, fenugreek, thistle and moringa.
Conducted at the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research and taking an interdisciplinary, chemical biology approach, the study set out to identify the specific natural compounds underlying the herbal galactagogues’ efficacy and elucidate their mechanism of action in promoting milk production in breast tissue.
The study was led by Professor Jing-Ke Weng and supported by FLRF. It also evaluated the potential toxicity of certain compounds present in these galactagogues – an important consideration for safe dosage.
Levsh O, Pluskal T, Carballo V, Mitchell AJ, Weng J-K. Independent evolution of rosmarinic acid biosynthesis in two sister families under the Lamiids clade of flowering plants. J Biol Chem [Internet]. 2019;294(42):15193–205. DOI: 10.1074/jbc.RA119.010454
Mitchell AJ, Weng J-K. Unleashing the synthetic power of plant oxygenases: From mechanism to application. Plant Physiol [Internet]. 2019;179(3):813–29. DOI: 10.1104/pp.18.01223
Torrens-Spence MP, Liu C-T, Weng J-K. Engineering new branches of the kynurenine pathway to produce oxo-(2-aminophenyl) and quinoline scaffolds in yeast. ACS Synth Biol [Internet]. 2019;8(12):2735–45. DOI:10.1021/acssynbio.9b00368
Pluskal T, Torrens-Spence MP, Fallon TR, De Abreu A, Shi CH, Weng J-K. The biosynthetic origin of psychoactive kavalactones in kava. Nat Plants [Internet]. 2019 [cited 2021 Dec 8];5(8):867–78. DOI: 10.1038/s41477-019-0474-0
Christ B, Xu C, Xu M, Li F-S, Wada N, Mitchell AJ, et al. Repeated evolution of cytochrome P450-mediated spiroketal steroid biosynthesis in plants. Nat Commun [Internet]. 2019;10(1):3206. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11286-7
Penagos Tabares F, Bedoya Jaramillo JV, Ruiz-Cortés ZT. Pharmacological Overview of Galactogogues. Vet Med Int. 2014;2014:602894. DOI: 10.1155/2014/602894.
Yang Y, Zhang Z, Li S, Ye X, Li X, He K. Synergy effects of herb extracts: Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamic basis. Fitoterapia. 2014;92:133-147.
Lopez TA, Campero CM, Chayer R, Cosentino B, Caracino M. Experimental toxicity of verbesina encelioides in sheep and isolation of galegine. Vet Hum Toxicol. 1996 Dec;3
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