The Caenorhabditis elegans is an inexpensive model organism for studies of aging, and as a platform for rapidly screening natural products. Two medicinally-important plants were studied in preliminary studies for cancer chemopreventive potential. Moringa ole ifera (MO) tree are edible and have been used for the treatment of human ailments in traditional medicine. Noni (Morinda citriflora) has been extensively used in folk medicine and recent studies have shown that Noni has a wide spectrum of therapeutic activities including inhibition of angiogenesis, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer activities. The crude methanol MO leaf extracts, pod extracts, isolated pure compounds and fermented noni exudate, were tested using the following assays: heat shock tolerance and oxidative stress. As a result, niazinin A isolated from Moringa pods gave a 41% increase in heat shock and 28% increase in oxidative stress at 20g/mL, which was similar to the positive control, epigallocatechin gallate at 0.1 ?g/mL. In contrast, 4-[(?-L-rhamnosyloxy)benzyl]isothiocyanate, and Moringa pod extracts at 20 ?g/mL decreased life span of C. elegans as compared with the negative control. Niazinin A is currently being studied in its effects on regulation of thre e genes:
hsp-16.2,
daf-16, and
daf-2. These genes can increase lifespan in C. elegans and can influence or are influenced by the Heat-Shock Factor-1 (
hsf-1). Initial screening for heat shock showed that 1.0 g/mL of the noni exudate extract gave a 35% increase in heat shock tolerance. Noni exudate is currently being screened for its ability to give resistance to oxidative stress. In sum, these results indicated the selected plants are a promising source of pharmacologically relevant natural products [Supported by NIH INBRE project PR016467-08 (P20)] .