Delphinium uncinatum mediated biosynthesis of zinc oxide nanoparticles and in-vitro evaluation of their antioxidant, cytotoxic, antimicrobial, anti-diabetic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-aging activities.

Nanotechnology is perhaps the most widely explored scientific domain in the current era. With the advent of NPs, revolutionary changes have been observed in various scientific disciplines. Among the NPs, ZnO-NPs are the center of contemplation owing to their biocompatible nature. These nanoparticles have been prepared using a number of techniques; however, biological methods are among the most popular synthesis approaches. The current research therefore reports the phyto-fabrication of ZnO-NPs mediated by Delphinium uncinatum root extract. The resulting NPs were subjected to standard characterization methods such fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. The resulting NPs are exploited to their possible antioxidant, antimicrobial, antidiabetic, cytotoxic, anti-inflammatory and anti-ageing potency. FTIR confirmed the capping of ZnO-NPs by a variety of phytochemicals. ZnO-NPs average size was approximately 30 nm. ZnO-NPs exhibited substantial bio-potency and proved to be highly biocompatible even at higher concentrations. ZnO-NPs revealed strong antimicrobial potency for Pseudomonas aeruginosa proving to be the most susceptible strain showing inhibition of 16 ± 0.98. ZnO-NPs also showed dose dependent antidiabetic and cytotoxic potential. COX-1, COX-2, 15-LOX and sPLA2 were efficiently inhibited upon exposure to ZnO-NPs confirming the anti-inflammatory potential of ZnO-NPs. Similarly, ZnO-NPs also revealed considerable anti-aging potential. With such diverse biological potentials, ZnO-NPs can prove to be a potent weapon against a plethora of diseases; however, further study is necessary in order to discover the precise mechanism that is responsible for the biological potency of these NPs.

Distribution and Classification of Dehydrins in Selected Plant Species Using Bioinformatics Approach.

BACKGROUND: Plant growth, reproduction and yields are severely damaged under adverse environmental stresses. These stresses can be either biotic or abiotic, and many stress related proteins are expressed in response to these stresses. Among these proteins dehydrins are reported to have a role primarily in the abiotic stresses. Dehydrins are very diverse proteins and a uniform annotation system is needed for their functional characterization in the future research. OBJECTIVES: The aim of the present work is to identify, classify and analyze the expression of dehydrin proteins under different biotic and abiotic stresses in the selected plant species by using different computational tools. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Prosite database is used for dehydrin proteins identification, and to conform the location of conserved motifs in selected plant species. The dehydrins extracted from uniprot database were annotated, based on the ensemble plant gene id. Subcellular localization was predicted using PSI predictor tool. Dehydrin expression analyses were retrieved form the genevestigator tool. RESULTS: Dehydrins were annotated on the basis of dehydrin gene locus and conserved motifs available in different domain databases. Dehydrins were identified and annotated in Arabidopsis thaliana (13), Glycine max (12), Zea mays (05), Oryza sativa (11), Solanum tuberosum (05), Solanum lycopersicum (06), Triticum aestivum (32) and Vitis vinifera (06). It has been proposed that dehydrins are located primarily in cytosol and nucleus. Based on genevestigater expression analyses the plant species selected for this study contain all the classes of dehydrins, namely YnSKn, Kn, SKn, and YnKn; except class KnS. CONCLUSIONS: Dehydrins are diverse proteins and a uniform classification is introduced for their better characterization. The distribution of dehydrins in different tissues and developmental stages suggest an important function throughout plant growth cycle. It has also been concluded that dehydrins expressed particularly in drought, cold and salt stresses, and may have limited role in heat, anoxia, heavy-metal and biotic stresses as well.

Cytotoxicity and molecular docking studies on phytosterols isolated from Polygonum hydropiper L.

Based on our previous studies on cytotoxic potentials of Polygonum hydropiper L, two steroidal compounds beta-sitosterol and stigmasterol were isolated from the most active fraction and were subjected to cell lines cytotoxicity. Isolated compounds were tested against HeLa, MCF-7 and NIH/3T3 cell lines following MTT assay. Furthermore, the compounds were also docked against tyrosine kinase enzyme to predict the binding mode of phytosterols in the active sites of the enzyme. Beta-sitosterol exhibited considerable cytotoxicity against NIH/3T3, HeLa and MCF-7 cell with 67.05 ±â€¯2.08, 79.63 ±â€¯2.34 and 71.50 ±â€¯1.57% lethality respectively at 1 mg/ml concentration. Median inhibitory concentrations calculated from dose response curve against NIH/3T3, HeLa and MCF-7 cells were 440, 170 and 200 µg/ml respectively. Stigmasterol was more effective against MCF-7 and NIH/3T3 cells by killing 87.50 and 81.45% cancerous cells respectively at 1 mg/ml concentration. Stigmasterol showed 77.25% cyctotoxicity against HeLA cells at 1 mg/ml concentration in MTT assay. The IC50 values for HeLA, MCF-7 and NIH/3T3 cells were 170, 60 and 140 µg/ml respectively. In docking studies, the docking score for beta-sitosterol and stigmasterol were -7.266 and -4.89 respectively. The binding energies for beta-sitosterol and stigmasterol were -41.21 and -41.04 respectively. Such lower binding energies indicate that the compounds fit into the active site more strongly. Binding affinities for both compounds were -7.76 and -7.68 respectively. Both phytosterols possess significant anticancer potentials and can be effective in the prevention and treatment of several malignancies.

Protein adsorption onto monoliths: A surface energetics study.

This part of work was done to explore the basic understanding of the adsorption chromatography by determining the interaction of selected model proteins (n = 5) to monolithic chromatographic materials, with varying densities of butyl and phenyl ligands. Surface energetics approach was applied to study the interaction behavior. The physicochemical properties of the proteins and monolithic chromatographic materials were explored by contact angle and zeta potential values. These values were used to study protein to monolith interaction under various operating conditions. Surface energetics approach allowed the calculation of interaction energy as a function of distance, i.e. energy minimum values. Calculations were performed at various conditions to analyze the effect of major operating parameters on the interaction strength. The interaction strength exposed the hydrophobic nature of the monoliths which increases with increasing ligand density. Further, interaction energy of proteins were higher with monolith with butyl ligand compared to monolith with phenyl ligand. For instance, lactoferrin interaction to monoliths with butyl represents more interaction, i.e. 24.38 kT as compared to monoliths with phenyl i.e. 23.28 kT, keeping lambda as 0.2 nm and salt concentration as 100 mM of ammonium sulphate. Hence, more energy and time will be consumed for elution of proteins immobilized to monoliths with butyl. Similarly, the effect of solid surface for proteins immobilization, effect of ligand density and effect of lambda showed some interesting insights on the interaction behavior. The knowledge generated from the present work will help in the basic understanding as well as development of an efficient, low cost downstream processing design and may mimic the real chromatographic experiments.