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Plants are the priceless sources of bioactive natural compounds. Medicinal plants have been used since time immemorial in both developing and developed countries. Flemingia macrophylla (Willd.) is widely used as a hereditary medicines. The current study was designed to observe the analgesic, antidiarrheal and CNS depressant activities of methanol extract of the leaves of F. macrophylla (MEFM) and its petroleum ether (PEFM), dichloromethane (DFM), chloroform (CFM) and aqueous (AFM) fractions. The analgesic activities was assessed by acetic acid induced writhing method at doses 200- and 400- mg/kg body weight. The CNS-depressant effect was assayed by phenobarbitone sodium-induced sleeping time test. The anti-diarrheal activity of the extract was evaluated using castor oil-induced diarrhea in mice. The crude extract displayed significant peripheral analgesic activity at both test doses with 56.72- to 59.70-% inhibition of writhing responses, respectively. In CNS-depressant test, the extract revealed its activity in a dose dependent manner. In screening for antidiarrheal activity, the extract exhibited 20.83 and 41.67 % inhibition of defecation at 200- and 400-mg/kg bw, respectively whereas the standard loperamide (50 mg/kg bw) displayed 70.83 % inhibition of defecation. Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Journal 23(2): 141-145, 2020

The methanol extract of the leaves of Canavalia virosa (Roxb.) W&A was investigated for the evaluation of analgesic, anti-diarrheal and CNS-depressant activities in Swiss albino mice. The analgesic activity was assessed by formalin-induced paw licking method, where the crude extract of C. virosa (400 mg/kg, b.w.) exhibited 41.46% reduction of licking response in mice as compared to 73.17% reduction exhibited by standard acetylsalicylic acid. In the castor oil-induced diarrhea in mice, the plant extract at the dose of 200 mg/kg, b.w., demonstrated 56% reduction of diarrheal feces in mice, while the standard loperamide revealed 76% reduction of diarrheal feces. The CNS-depressant activity of the plant extract was assessed through phenobarbitone-Na induced sleeping time test. The methanol extract of C. virosa and its different Kupchan fractions were also subjected to screen membrane stabilizing and cytotoxic activities using acetylsalicylic acid and vincristine sulphate as standard, respectively. Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Journal 22(2): 214-218, 2019

A cross was made between MR219 (high yielding but submergence intolerant) and Swarna-Sub1 (submergence tolerant) to produce submergence-tolerant rice variety using the marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC) method to protect the farmers of low-lying land from flash floods during rain. Knowledge of yield and yield contributing factors plays a vital role in the selection process of a variety. This experim ent was designed to determine the genetic diversity among recently produced different lines of BC2F3 population and also to compare all the lines with MR219 to find the best one. Agronomical, yield and yield contributing data were taken, while genotypic and phenotypic coefficients, variance components and heritability were estimated. Introgression of the target gene, Sub1, was done using tightly linked marker, and also background recovery was measured using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers in different generations. The observed recurrent parent genome (RPG) recovery of BC2F2 generation was 95.37%, which indicates high-level similarity between the recurrent parent (MR219) and the resulting lines. Thirty newly developed lines of BC2F3 population, resulting backcross of MR219 and Swarna-Sub1, were planted with four replications following randomised complete block design (RCBD). Newly developed lines were grouped into four clusters based on traits with UPGMA dendrogram and cluster analysis to select the 10 best plants. This study will help the future researchers to select the best plants of a breeding programme after introgression of a gene considering phenotype performances to develop new varieties.