Therapeutic potential of medicinal plants for the management of scabies.

Sarcoptes scabiei (S. scabiei), a parasite mite which causes scabies disease resulting in serious public health concern. The long-term scabies disease can lead to complications such as septicemia, acute post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis, heart disease, and secondary infections. Timely treatment to the affected patients is required to control the disease and get rid of the causative agent. Delayed diagnosis and inappropriate treatment can lead to serious consequences. The most common treatment strategy is the use of allopathic medicines which can immediately relieve the patient but have the drawback of side effects. The safe and cost-effective alternative treatment strategy is the use of medicinal plants which have beneficial therapeutic potential against variety of diseases due to the presence of many bioactive phytoconstituents with no or minimal side effects. For the present review, the published articles describing scabies disease and its phytotherapeutic modalities were searched through different data bases including Google Scholar, PubMed, Medline, and ScienceDirect using the keywords like S. scabiei, prevalence of scabies disease, and phytotherapy of scabies. A large number of medicinal plants, such as Melaleuca alternifolia, Curcuma longa, Azadirachta indica, Rosmarinus officinalis, Capsicum annuum, Cinnamomum camphor, Solanum nigrum, and Eupatorium perfoliatum, have been reviewed for the promising future treatments of scabies. All the studied plants have many bioactive compounds with potential therapeutic effects against scabies and can be utilized for therapeutic purposes for this disease. This literature study has limitations because of the lack of sufficient data due to limited pre-clinical trials in this particular area. This review provides a baseline to explore the therapeutic potential of these medicinal plants against skin diseases. However, extensive studies are required to identify, authenticate, and characterize the bioactive compounds present in these plants which may lead to value addition in pharmaceutical industries providing the cost-effective way of treatment with minimal side effects.

Submerged cultivation of medicinal mushroom in hydrolysate of ligno-cellulosic material.

Ganoderma lucidum belongs to the family Ganodermataceae and found in Japan, China and some other parts of Asia. Traditionally it is used in herbal medicine as anti-diabetic, cancer prevention agent, antitumor, an immunomodulatory, antimicrobial and antiviral agent. Due to difficulty in field cultivation, submerged fermentation was employed as a promising method for efficient and large-scale production of mycelia biomass and bioactive metabolites. Cellulose was used in the form of a lignocellulosic substrate. The Ganoderma lucidum which is medicinal and edible mushrooms were successfully grown in the form of mycelial biomass in static submerged culture in Petri plates and flasks. The present study is based on the utilization of hydrolyzates of lignocellulosic materials such as Peanut cort, Sugarcane bagasse, and Wheat Straw was used after hydrolysis. A Static Fermentation Technique was employed to investigate the mycelial growth, instead of Fruiting Body. Ganoderma lucidum was kept up on PDA (potato dextrose agar) medium in Petri dishes at 4°C and brooded at 25°C for 5 days for the development of G. lucidum and generation of Ganoderic Acid. Morphology of G. lucidum on various Hydrolysates was white and delicate like cotton unpredictable shape, Cloud-like appearance spread in general plate and multiple little sporadic white cotton-like shape with string-like projections. We got a Ganoderic Acid from the Hydrolysates of Peanut cort concentrate, Sugarcane bagasse concentrate and Wheat straw concentrate at a concentration of 0.006g/L, 0.011g/L and 0.017g/L respectively.

The evaluation ofefficacy and safety of Cough (EMA) granules used for upper respiratory disorders.

Ivy leaf is used for the treatment of respiratory diseases with the intensive mucus formation, respiratory infections, and irritating cough coming from the common cold. Conferring to clinical trials, the efficacy, and tolerability of ivy leaf is good. The main compounds accountable for biological activity are triterpene and saponins. Ivy leaves show convulsive/antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, analgesic, anthelmintic and anti-thrombin activity. Not only ivy but also marshmallow and mustard seeds are used for these indications. This study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Cough (EMA; European Medicines Agency) granules used for upper respiratory disorders. This clinical trial was conducted on 150 patients, out of which 75received the Cough (EMA) granules and 75received the placebo. The age range of patients was 3 years to above 15 years. The sample paired t-test was applied to evaluate the significant level. Cough (EMA) granules were found effective in the treatment of cough, cold, and flu symptoms. The new treatment Cough (EMA) granules were safe and well tolerated in patient at given specific age group. The study recommends that Cough (EMA) granules can be used effectively in the treatment of upper respiratory tract infection.

Phytochemical analysis and hepatoprotective effect of polyherbal formulation on CCl4 induced hepatotoxicity in mice.

The potent phytotherapeutic modalities against the hepatotoxicity have motivated us to explore numerous plants and polyherbal preparations because conventional drug discovery is more expensive and tedious. So, this study was conducted to evaluate the hepatoprotective potential of a polyherbal formulation (PHF), comprising of Solanum nigrum, Silybum marianum, Atrmesia absinthium, Achillea millifolium and Cichorium intybus against carbon tetrachloride(CCl4) induced hepatotoxicity in experimental rats. CCl4intoxicationinduced vacuole formation and fastdegeneration so selective liver enzymes including alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkalinephosphatase (ALP) and total bilirubin in rat's plasma,as well as liver histological architecture, were used to evaluate the effect of herbal treatments with different doses (ranging 100-500 mg/kg) for two weeks. Statistical analysis showed that PHF significantly (P<.05) improved the level of liver enzymes as well as improve the liver architecture comparative to control groups. It could be concluded from current findings that PHF prepared from Solanum nigrum, Silybum marianum, Atrmesia absinthium, Achillea millifiloium and Cichorium intybus have some hepatoprotective activities.

A review: Mechanism of action of antiviral drugs.

Antiviral drugs are a class of medicines particularly used for the treatment of viral infections. Drugs that combat viral infections are called antiviral drugs. Viruses are among the major pathogenic agents that cause number of serious diseases in humans, animals and plants. Viruses cause many diseases in humans, from self resolving diseases to acute fatal diseases. Developing strategies for the antiviral drugs are focused on two different approaches: Targeting the viruses themselves or the host cell factors. Antiviral drugs that directly target the viruses include the inhibitors of virus attachment, inhibitors of virus entry, uncoating inhibitors, polymerase inhibitors, protease inhibitors, inhibitors of nucleoside and nucleotide reverse transcriptase and the inhibitors of integrase. The inhibitors of protease (ritonavir, atazanavir and darunavir), viral DNA polymerase (acyclovir, tenofovir, valganciclovir and valacyclovir) and of integrase (raltegravir) are listed among the Top 200 Drugs by sales during 2010s. Still no effective antiviral drugs are available for many viral infections. Though, there are a couple of drugs for herpesviruses, many for influenza and some new antiviral drugs for treating hepatitis C infection and HIV. Action mechanism of antiviral drugs consists of its transformation to triphosphate following the viral DNA synthesis inhibition. An analysis of the action mechanism of known antiviral drugs concluded that they can increase the cell's resistance to a virus (interferons), suppress the virus adsorption in the cell or its diffusion into the cell and its deproteinisation process in the cell (amantadine) along with antimetabolites that causes the inhibition of nucleic acids synthesis. This review will address currently used antiviral drugs, mechanism of action and antiviral agents reported against COVID-19.