Seyed Alireza Salami

• Professor
• Professor (Associate) at University of Tehran

Background Future breeding and selection of Cannabis sativa L. for both drug production and industrial purposes require a source of germplasm with wide genetic variation, such as that found in wild relatives and progenitors of highly cultivated plants. Limited directional selection and breeding have occurred in this crop, especially informed by mol...

Recently, the anti-tumor effects of cannabis extract on various cancers have attracted the attention of researchers. Here, we report a nanoemulsion (NE) composition designed to enhance the delivery of two active components in cannabis extracts (∆9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and Cannabidiol (CBD)) in an animal model of glioblastoma. The efficacy of...

Crocus sativus L. is considered as one of the richest sources of apocarotenoids, including crocin, picrocrocin, and safranal. The oxidative breakdown of carotenoids generates apocarotenoids. Glycosylation is the final step of crocin biosynthesis which is crucial due to its role in pigment solubility in water and changes the chemical properties and...

Crocus sativus L. is considered as one of the richest sources of apocarotenoids, including crocin, picrocrocin, and safranal. The oxidative breakdown of carotenoids generates apocarotenoids. Glycosylation is the final step of crocin biosynthesis which is crucial due to its role in pigment solubility in water and changes the chemical properties and...

Future breeding and selection of Cannabis sativa L. for drug production and industrial purposes require a source of germplasm with wide genetic variation, such as that found in wild relatives and progenitors of highly cultivated plants. Limited directional selection and breeding have occurred in this crop, especially informed by molecular markers....

Salvia leriifolia Benth. is one of the native Iranian medicinal plants which has received attention in recent years due to its numerous therapeutic properties. The pharmaceutical properties of this species have been attributed to the presence of phenolic compounds, especially phenolic acids. The present study investigated the effect of plant age (p...

Background and Objects: In order to determine the appropriate concentration of Bacillus subtilis under Zanjan’s climate zone, the present study was conducted to study the effect of different concentrations of bacteria on morphophysiological features of flowers and corm in two saffron ecotypes. Materials and Methods: Experiments were conducted with...

Rosmarinic acid (RA), as the major secondary metabolite of Salvia species, is a valuable bioactive compound for pharmaceutical applications. Toward rosmarinic acid production, Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with 0.5 mg L−1 2,4-D and 2 mg L−1 BA or 1 mg L−1 2,4-D and 1 mg L−1 BA showed the highest percentage of callus induction (100%)....

Context Cannabis is a herbaceous annual plant that belongs to the Cannabaceae family, which is used in the production of fibre, paper, oil and pharmaceutical products. Aims The aim of this study was to identify drought-tolerant ecotypes and medicinal and industrial populations. Methods Due to the medicinal and industrial importance of cannabis, 1...

Sambucus is a cosmopolitan plant genus that has been used for centuries for its medicinal properties and nutritional value. Sambucus nigra, the most studied species, contains a wide range of bioactive compounds that have been linked to various health benefits. Moreover, the fruit of the elderberry is a rich source of phytochemicals and is used to m...

Rhus coriaria L., commonly known as sumac, is a shrub of the Anacardiaceae family present in various subtropical and temperate regions of the world. Considering the rich array of functional and nutraceutical ingredients, sumac extracts are an underutilized source of health-promoting dietary ingredients. For example, sumac is a spice with remarkable...

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) is a sterile triploid (2n = 3x = 24) plant with a big complex genome and rare and limited breeding history. Breeding and genetic improvement of saffron is not easy due to its male sterility caused by triploidy and lack of enough diversity, whereas several hybrids are introduced by crossing the wild Crocus species. Poor b...

Bioinformatics is the bedrock of modern studies using omics-based approaches like genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabalomics, ionomics, etc. The complex web of molecular and genetic interactions that connect individual components of an organelle or a cell with the overall scheme of organismal behaviour cannot be elucidated without bioinfor...

Saffron genome is very complex; therefore, usual tools to survey its genome and transcriptome have not been able to answer many questions yet. Recently, several new approaches have been developed based on OMICS methodologies and led to a better understanding of genes and related networks and biological processes in saffron. Consequently, the enormo...

Several clonal propagation methods are able to produce true-to-type clones of saffron plants under aseptic controlled conditions. Saffron in vitro culture included organogenesis, embryogenesis, Stigma-like structure generation, cormogenesis, cell suspension culture, and protoplast culture is being widely accepted today not only as a robust approach...

Phlomis olivieri (Lamiaceae) is a medicinal plant that exhibits diverse variations across a multitude of geographical ranges. Here, we studied the genetic diversity of this species according to start codon targeted (SCoT) markers and morphological variability based on 15 morphological traits. Specifically, the genetic diversity was studied among 10...

The characteristic growth habit, abundant green foliage, and aromatic inflorescences of cannabis provide the plant with an ideal profile as an ornamental plant. However, due to legal barriers, the horticulture industry has yet to consider the ornamental relevance of cannabis. To evaluate its suitability for introduction as a new ornamental species,...

A high-quality transcriptome is required to advance numerous bioinformatics workflows. Nevertheless, the effectuality of tools for de novo assembly and real precision assembled transcriptomes looks somewhat unexplored, particularly for non-model organisms with complicated (very long, heterozygous, polyploid) genomes. To disclose the performance of...

Rosmarinic acid (RA) is a widely known and interesting medicinal phenolic acid produced through plant, cell, tissue, and organ cultures. In this study, hairy roots were induced using various strains of Agrobacterium rhizogenes (ATCC15834, A4, R1000, and GM1534). Furthermore, the effect of different levels of sucrose, IBA and medium (MS, ½ MS) was e...

Plant-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) have been the topic of interest in recent years due to their proven therapeutic properties. Intact or manipulated plant EVs have shown antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancerous activities as a result of containing bioactive metabolites and other endogenous molecules. Less is known about the EV eff...

Saffron quality is determined by the content of three apocarotenoids, including crocin, picrocrocin, and safranal, giving saffron culinary, industrial, and medical importance. The level of these secondary metabolites is also affected by environmental factors such as light, which play a pivotal role in regulating plants' signaling pathways. In this...

Low temperature is a limiting factor for crop productivity in tropical and subtropical climates. Cold stress response in plants involves perceiving and relaying the signal through a transcriptional cascade composed of different transduction components, resulting in altered gene activity. We performed a meta-analysis of four previously published dat...

Lilium ledebourii (Baker) Boiss is a rare species, which exhibits valuable traits. However, before its genetic diversity and evolutionary were uncovered, its wild resources were jeopardized. Moreover, some ambiguities in phylogenetic relationships of this genus remain unresolved. Therefore, obtaining the whole chloroplast sequences of L. ledebourii...

Electrospun nanofibers can be used as membranes for cell culture applications. In addition to their high performance and cost-effectiveness, nanofibers can be made from a variety of polymers where that can be utilized in microfluidic devices as separators, filters, and for biological assessments. In this paper, we have employed a two-pump technique...

Electrospun nanofibers can be used as membranes for cell culture applications. In addition to their high performance and cost-effectiveness, nanofibers can be made from a variety of polymers and utilized in microfluidic devices as separators, filters, and for biological assessments. In this paper, we have employed a two-pump technique to prepare a...

Transcriptomic analyses are needful tools to gain insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying plant responses to abiotic stresses. The aim of this study was to identify key genes differentially regulated in response to chilling stress in various plant species with different levels of tolerance to low temperatures. A meta-analysis was performed...

The cherimoya (Annona cherimola), also named chirimoya, is an edible fruit tree of the genus Annona belonging to the family Annonaceae. It is mostly present in tropical and subtropical world regions. This plant species has a long history of use in folk traditional medicine against degenerative and chronic diseases. Fruit and leaf tissues are used a...

Cannabis (Cannabis sativa L.) has a rich history of human use, and the therapeutic importance of compounds produced by this species is recognized by the medical community. The active constituents of cannabis, collectively called cannabinoids, encompass hundreds of distinct molecules, the most well-characterized of which are tetrahydrocannabinol (TH...

Phenolic acids, as the predominant secondary metabolites of Salvia plants, are largely used in pharmaceutical industries. The main aim of the study was to establish hairy root cultures of Salvia virgata Jacq. Also, the effects of methyl jasmonate (22.4 and 11.2 ppm), Ag⁺ ions (5 and 2.5 ppm) and yeast extract (100 and 50 ppm) were assessed on total...

The regulation and the conduct of plant cellular processes is complex and involve many levels. These include the genetic makeup in the form of DNA or RNA and the decoding of the nucleotide sequence(s) into different types of RNA. The RNA then translates into peptides and functional proteins, sometimes involving posttranslational modifications too....

Main conclusion A robust workflow for the identification of miRNAs and their targets in saffron was developed. MicroRNA-mediated gene regulation in saffron is potentially involved in several biological processes, including the biosynthesis of highly valuable apocarotenoids. AbstractSaffron (Crocus sativus L.) is the most expensive spice in the worl...

Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna Jacq.) is a wild edible fruit tree of the genus Crataegus, one of the most interesting genera of the Rosaceae family. This review is the first to consider, all together, the pharmaceutical, phytochemical, functional and therapeutic properties of C. monogyna based on numerous valuable secondary metabolites, including fla...

Control of ionic gradients is critical to maintain cellular homeostasis in both physiological and pathological conditions, but the role of ion channels in cancer cells has not been studied thoroughly. In this work we demonstrated that activity of the Kv11.1 potassium channel plays a vital role in controlling the migration of colon cancer cells by r...

Aluminum phosphide (AlP) poisoning is common in many countries responsible for high mortality. The heart is the main target organ in AlP poisoning. Several studies have reported the beneficial effects of cannabidiol (CBD) in reducing heart injuries. This study aimed to investigate the possible protective effect of CBD on cardiac toxicity caused by...

Phenolic acids are one of the most valuable groups of bioactive compounds in Salvia species. In this work, the effect of MeJA (50 μM) and AgNO3 (15 μM) on the phenolic acids accumulation and the expression of some crucial genes involved in the synthesis of these compounds were evaluated in two Salvia species of Iran, S. officinalis and S. verticill...

Saffron is a valuable plant and one of the most expensive spices worldwide. Nowadays, there is a tendency to produce this crop in indoor plant production systems. However, the production of saffron is restricted by the need for the reproduction of high-quality corms. In this study, we investigated the effect of different ratios of red (R) and blue...

Phenolic acids, as the predominant secondary metabolites of Salvia species, are largely used in pharmaceutical industries. The main aim of the study was to establish hairy root cultures of Salvia virgata Jacq. Also, the effects of methyl jasmonate (22.4 and 11.2 ppm), Ag ⁺ ions (5 and 2.5 ppm), and yeast extract (100 and 50 ppm) were assessed on to...

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) and its wild relatives, Crocus caspius and Crocus speciosus are of considerable significance in the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and ornamental bulbs industry. Towards the ultimate goal of the conservation of wild Crocus species and establishment of an efficient workflow for in vitro production of Crocuses, efficient p...

In order to evaluate the tolerance to water deficit stress of 47 different ecotypes of Iranian cannabis (Cannabis sativa L.), a split plot experiment based on a randomized complete block design with two replications was conducted at the Research Station of the University of Tehran in 2015. Ecotypes were considered as the minor factor and water defi...

Background: Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular protozoan with worldwide distribution. Diagnosis of toxoplasmosis is a very critical issue, especially in pregnant women and immunocompromised patients. The aim of this study was rapid detection of T. gondii DNA in peripheral blood samples (PBS) employing HRM technique and using RE gene. M...

Alternate bearing (AB) refers to the tendency of trees to have an irregular crop load from 1 year (ON) to the next year (OFF). Despite its economic importance, it is not fully understood how gene networks and their related metabolic pathways may influence the irregular bearing in olive trees. To unravel molecular mechanisms of this phenomenon in ol...

Cannabis is an annual plant with a long history of use as food, feed, fiber, oil, medicine, and narcotics. Despite realizing its true value, it has not yet found its true place. Cannabis has had a long history with many ups and downs, and now it is our turn to promote it. Cannabis contains approximately 600 identified and many yet unidentified pote...

Melanoma is the fourth most common type of cancer diagnosed in Australians after breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers. While there has been substantial progress in the treatment of cancer in general, malignant melanoma, in particular, is resistant to existing medical therapies requiring an urgent need to develop effective treatments with lesser...

Aims Cannabinoids are the chemical compounds with a high affinity for cannabinoid receptors affecting the central nervous system through the release of neurotransmitters. However, the current knowledge related to the role of compounds in the regulation of cellular aging is limited. This study aimed to investigate the effect of cannabidiol and tetra...

Background: Superantigens can be absorbed trans-mucosal and trans-cutaneous in individuals colonized with superantigen producing Staphylococcus aureus. Ability of superantigens to activate a large numbers of T cells suggests that they may play a role in the course of autoimmune diseases including human multiple sclerosis and experimental autoimmun...

Cumin, Cuminum cyminum L., is the king of spices with a plethora of natural compounds with pharmacological features. Drought stress is a well-known factor that influences the production of some metabolites. We studied the impact of drought stress on gene expression and metabolite content in flower and leaf tissue organs of two ecotypes, Taybad and...

Drought is one of the most important environmental factor limiting the growth of woody and non woody plants. In the present paper, we aimed to explore the performance of Maclura pomifera under a prolonged drought period followed by re-watering. M. pomifera plants were exposed to four different watering regimes (100%, 75%, 50% and 30% of the field c...

Cannabis (Cannabis sativa L.), commonly known as hemp, is an annual herb belongs to the family Cannabacea. The seeds of this plant have considerable content of oil and unsaturated fatty acids, and its fiber is used in the paper and textile industries. Tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol are main cannabinoid compounds of this plant, which have h...

The Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.), is an annual herbaceous plant belonging to the family Cannabacea. The seeds of this plant have a high content of oil containing significant levels of unsaturated fatty acids and have high importance and growing applications in food, medicine and other industries. In the present study, the seeds of 12 hemp ecotypes of...

The potential for product recovery of metabolites can be improved by several methods; one of the most common techniques is elicitation. Elicitors can adjust multiple control points and precipitate the expression of some key genes. This project was conducted with the aim of increasing valuable secondary metabolites such as D-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (...

Fat-tail content of sheep breeds is varied and the molecular mechanisms regulating fat-tail development have not been well characterized. Aiming at better identifying the important candidate genes and their functional pathways contributing to fat deposition in the tail, a comparative transcriptome analysis was performed between fat- (Lori-Bakhtiari...

Medicinal plants are commonly rich in phenolic compounds such as phenolic acids, flavonoids, tannins and lignins . The amount of phenolic compounds varies with plant organ, age, phenological stage and environmental conditions . Salvia leriifolia Benth. (Lamiaceae) is a medicinal plant native to Iran and Afghanistan . Pharmaceutical properties of th...

Medicinal plants are commonly rich in phenolic compounds such as phenolic acids, flavonoids, tannins and lignins. The amount of phenolic compounds varies with plant organ, age, phenological stage and environmental conditions. Salvia leriifolia Benth. (Lamiaceae) is a medicinal plant native to Iran and Afghanistan. Pharmaceutical properties of this...

Peppermint is one of the most important and commonly used medicinal and aromatic plants worldwide. Present experiment was conducted to evaluate the essential oil content and quantitative changes of the main components of peppermint plants at different stages of crop growth. Greenhouse pots with peppermint Plants (30, 60 and 90 days after transplant...

Emerging evidence suggests that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) participate in the regulation of a diverse range of biological processes. However, most studies have been focused on a few established model organisms and little is known about lncRNAs in fat-tail development in sheep. Here, the first profile of lncRNA in sheep fat-tail along with their...

Aim: We designed a novel approach based on real-time PCR followed by high-resolution melting (HRM) analysis to determine the Staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) types of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains, which we compared against the results of conventional multiplex PCR SCCmec typing. Methods: Multiplex PCR (for c...

Peppermint (Mentha × piperita L.) infusion is one of the main important sources of antioxidants. This antioxidant property can be enhanced by using elicitors and inducing abiotic stress. This study was conducted to evaluate the foliar application of Methyl Jasmonate (50 µM) and water deficit stress (no stress, mild stress and moderate stress as 100...

Successful spermatogenesis and oogenesis are the two genetically independent processes preceding embryo development. To date, several fertility-related proteins have been described in mammalian species. Nevertheless, further studies are required to discover more proteins associated with the development of germ cells and embryogenesis in order to sh...

The major bioactive compounds of saffron flowers are picrocrocin, and safranal, which significantly contribute towards the quality of saffron. Nevertheless, the variation in the metabolite profiling among Iranian saffron accessions with different origins has been reported due to the uniformity of cultivation, climatic conditions, and agronomic prac...

In recent years, drought-induced tree mortality has occurred in the oak forests of the Zagros Mountains (western Iran). The impacts of climate change induced by drought stress have been most acutely experienced by two populations of Persian oaks (Quercus brantii Lindl) grown in the western provinces (Ilam and Lorestan) of the Zagros region. We surv...

Spring frost is a major limiting abiotic stress for the cultivation of almonds [Prunus dulcis (Mill.)] in Mediterranean areas or the Middle East. Spring frost, in particular, damages almond fully open flowers, resulting to significant reduction in yield. Little is known about the genetic factors expressed after frost stress in Prunus spp. as well a...

In the original publication of the article, the affiliation of the third author has been incorrectly published as University of Yazd. However, the correct affiliation is Yazd University.

Variations Improper activation and inappropriate expression of fibroblast growth factor receptors ( FGFRs ) in cancer suggests that they can act as therapeutic targets. Fibroblast growth factor receptor inhibitors are currently employed in clinical trials of different cancers. Regarding the essence and the importance of the personalized medicine, m...

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) belonging to Iridaceae family as a source of apocarotenoids is one of the most valuable spices and medicinal plants in the world. Because of the large size and high complexity of saffron genome, its sequencing remains a challenge. The arrival of next-generation sequencing technologies (NGS) has allowed the rapid and effi...

Cannabis sativa has a complex history reflected in both selection on naturally occurring compounds and historical trade routes among humans. Iran is a rich resource of natural populationswhich hold the promise to characterize historical patterns of population structure and genetic diversity within Cannabis. Recent advances in high-throughput DNA se...

Soil salinity is a growing problem in the agriculture around the world and grapes are classified as a relatively sensitive plant to salinity. NAC transcription factor plays a significant role in abiotic stress, such as salinity. In the present study, grapevine cultivars (‘Bidane-Sefid’, ‘Sefid-Fakhri’, and ‘Yaghooti’) as well as three rootstocks (‘...

The cotton whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), is a significant agricultural pest in arable lands and on ornamental crops in temperate regions of the world. Cytochrome P450 monooxygenases have been proven to be associated with high resistance in B. tabaci to the neonicotinoids. In this study, the RNA interference (RNAi) e...

Long intergenic non-coding RNA (lincRNA) has been introduced as key regulators of diverse biological processes, including transcription, chromatin organization, cell growth and tumorigenesis. With regard to the potential role of lincRNAs in cancer development, one may postulate that differential expression of lincRNAs could be employed as a tool in...

Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) is a post-transcriptional gene silencing method which has a down-regulating effect on plant genes and its efficiency might be affected by several factors. Since Nicotiana alata has been used for a long time as a model plant for studying gametophytic self-incompatibility in Solanaceae, the current study was perfor...

For improvement asymbiotic seed germination media of temperate terrestrial orchid Epipactis veratrifolia , 12 different concentrations of the carbohydrates (fructose, glucose, sucrose and two combination of fructose with sucrose ) were assessed on the seed germination and protocorm development, in the presence (2g L−1) and absence of peptone in Fas...

Background: Aberrant pre-mRNA alternative splicing is a common event in cancer cells. Many abnormally spliced RNA variants have been observed in tumor cells and they can be used as biomarkers or therapeutic targets in new drug design. Increasing our knowledge in understanding the mechanisms of alternative pre-mRNA splicing for cancer-related genes...

Background: Streptococcus pneumoniae is a causative agent of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Diagnosis of pneumococcal infection includes conventional culture-based and molecular methods. Differentiation of S. pneumoniae from other mitis group streptococci is not reliable. Objectives: We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of lytB gene along with lyt...

Cannabis sativa L. has a long history of cultivation as food, fibre, medicine and recreational drugs. Production of high tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) plants for narcotic use (drug type) is illegal and under control in most countries. In contrast, cultivation of low THC plants (fibre type, also known as ‘industrial hemp’) is promoted in many countries...