Alan Blanc

Alan Blanc is a PhD student at the National University of Rosario and IBR-CONICET, Argentina. He holds an MSc in Biotechnology, during which he developed expertise in the extraction of plant-derived natural products and their chemical characterization. During his secondment at the Institute of Plant Physiology and Genetics in Sofia, Bulgaria, he evaluated the effects of different Rosmarinus officinalis aqueous extracts on the roots of Arabidopsis thaliana. Treatment with these extracts induced a root phenotype distinct from that of untreated plants, resembling the response typically associated with increased auxin levels. The study focused on analyzing the effects of rosmarinic acid and aqueous R. officinalis extracts in relation to auxin-related activity. Using A. thaliana reporter lines, the results indicated that these extracts either significantly altered auxin levels in the root or contained compounds with auxin-like activity. In contrast, rosmarinic acid alone did not elicit the same response. Therefore, the extracts likely contain additional metabolites, distinct from rosmarinic acid, that are responsible for this biological activity, and further studies are required to identify these compounds. Additionally, high concentrations of rosmarinic acid and the tested extracts were found to inhibit root growth in A. thaliana. Based on this observation, the extracts were further evaluated for their potential as growth inhibitors of the parasitic plant Phelipanche spp. Although statistical significance cannot be established due to the absence of duplicate assays, the results suggest a consistent trend toward inhibition of germination in this parasitic species when treated with extracts at concentrations of 100 and 200 µM rosmarinic acid, with ARE showing the highest inhibitory activity and rosmarinic acid the lowest.