Traditional Chinese medicinal plant yields new insecticide compounds

For hundreds of years, practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine have used an herb called Stemona sessilifolia as a remedy for parasitic infections, such as those caused by pinworms and lice. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry have identified 10 compounds that might be responsible for the herb's effectiveness. But there's a twist: The insecticides are produced by symbiotic microbes that live within the plant's cells—not by S. sessilifolia itself.

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