Microbial Intervention: An Approach to Combat the Postharvest Pathogens of Fruits.

Plants host diverse microbial communities, which undergo a complex interaction with each other. Plant-associated microbial communities provide various benefits to the host directly or indirectly, viz. nutrient acquisition, protection from pathogen invaders, mitigation from different biotic and abiotic stress. Presently, plant-associated microbial strains are frequently utilized as biofertilizers, biostimulants and biocontrol agents in greenhouse and field conditions and have shown satisfactory results. Nowadays, the plant/fruit microbiome has been employed to control postharvest pathogens and postharvest decay, and to maintain the quality or shelf life of fruits. In this context, the intervention of the natural fruit microbiome or the creation of synthetic microbial communities to modulate the functional attributes of the natural microbiome is an emerging aspect. In this regard, we discuss the community behavior of microbes in natural conditions and how the microbiome intervention plays a crucial role in the postharvest management of fruits.

Microalgal Carotenoids: Therapeutic Application and Latest Approaches to Enhance the Production.

Microalgae are microscopic photosynthetic organisms frequently found in fresh and marine water ecosystems. Various microalgal species have been considered a reservoir of diverse health-value products, including vitamins, proteins, lipids, and polysaccharides, and are broadly utilized as food and for the treatment of human ailments such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, allergies, and immunodeficiency. Microalgae-derived carotenoids are the type of accessory pigment that possess light-absorbing potential and play a significant role in metabolic functions. To date, nearly a thousand carotenoids have been reported, but a very less number of microalgae have been used for the commercial production of carotenoids. This review article briefly discussed the carotenoids of microalgal origin and their therapeutic application. In addition, we have briefly compiled the optimization of culture parameters used to enhance microalgal carotenoid production. In addition, the latest biotechnological approaches used to improve the yields of carotenoid has also been discussed.

A QSAR model of benzoxazole derivatives as potential inhibitors for inosine 5`-monophosphate dehydrogenase from Cryptosporidium parvum.

Cryptosporidium parvum is the common enteric protozoan pathogen causing cryptosporidiosis in human. Available drugs to treat cryptosporidiosis are ineffective and there is yet no vaccine against C. parvum. Therefore, it is of interest to design an improved yet effective drug against C. parvum. Here, we docked benzoxazole derivatives (collected from literature) with inosine 5`- monophosphate dehydrogenase (IMPDH) from Cryptosporidium parvum using the program AutoDock 4.2. The docked protein - inhibitor complex structure was optimized using molecular dynamics simulation for 5 ps with the CHARMM-22 force field using NAMD (NAnoscale Molecular Dynamics program) incorporated in visual molecular dynamics (VMD 1.9.2) and then evaluating the stability of complex structure by calculating RMSD values. NAMD is a parallel, object-oriented molecular dynamics code designed for high-performance simulation of large biomolecular systems. A quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR) model was built using energy-based descriptors as independent variable and pIC50 value as dependent variable of fifteen known benzoxazole derivatives with C. parvum IMPDH protein, yielding correlation coefficient r2 of 0.7948. The predictive performance of QSAR model was assessed using different cross-validation procedures. Our results suggest that a ligand-receptor binding interaction for inosine 5`-monophosphate dehydrogenase using a QSAR model is promising approach to design more potent inosine 5`-monophosphate dehydrogenase inhibitors prior to their synthesis.