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Latex is a type of sticky endogenous fluids derived from diverse plants including Euphorbia fischeriana, and is of great scientific and commercial values. In the current study, it was demonstrated that the latex extracted from E. fischeriana strongly respelled the growth of cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera. Using spectroscopic methods, HPLC, and GC-MS analyses, six aliphatic tigliane diterpenoids were isolated from the latex of E. fischeriana, among which three compounds (2, 3, and 5) were new. Two major compounds (1 and 4) exhibited remarkable antifeedant activity against H. armigera, with EC50 values at 2.59 and 15.32 μg/cm2, respectively. In addition, the quantification analysis of diterpenoids in different organs indicated that 4 was the most abundant constituent and was highly accumulated in the latex. Collectively, the current study highlighted that the diterpenoids in latex of E. fischeriana had a considerable antifeedant function against H. armigera, which might be employed for the future development of natural insecticides for organic farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge of an organism's fitness for survival is important for a complete understanding of microbial genetics and effective drug design. Current essential gene databases provide only binary essentiality data from genome-wide experiments. We therefore developed a new database that Integrates quantitative Fitness Information for Microbial genes (IFIM). The IFIM database currently contains data from 16 experiments and 2186 theoretical predictions. The highly significant correlation between the experiment-derived fitness data and our computational simulations demonstrated that the computer-generated predictions were often as reliable as the experimental data. The data in IFIM can be accessed easily, and the interface allows users to browse through the gene fitness information that it contains. IFIM is the first resource that allows easy access to fitness data of microbial genes. We believe this database will contribute to a better understanding of microbial genetics and will be useful in designing drugs to resist microbial pathogens, especially when experimental data are unavailable. Database URL: http://cefg.uestc.edu.cn/ifim/ or http://cefg.cn/ifim/, (© The Author(s) 2014. Published by Oxford University Press.)