Elucidation of Antiviral and Antioxidant Potential of C-Phycocyanin against HIV-1 Infection through In Silico and In Vitro Approaches.

Antiretroviral therapy is the single existing therapy for patients infected with HIV; however, it has drawbacks in terms of toxicity and resistance. Thus, there is a continuous need to explore safe and efficacious anti-retroviral agents. C-Phycocyanin (C-PC) is a phycobiliprotein, which has been known for various biological properties; however, its effect on HIV-1 replication needs revelation. This study aimed to identify the inhibitory effects of C-PC on HIV-1 using in vitro and in silico approaches and to assess its role in the generation of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) during HIV-1 infection. In vitro anti-HIV-1 activity of C-PC was assessed on TZM-bl cells through luciferase gene assay against four different clades of HIV-1 strains in a dose-dependent manner. Results were confirmed in PBMCs, using the HIV-1 p24 antigen assay. Strong associations between C-PC and HIV-1 proteins were observed through in silico molecular simulation-based interactions, and the in vitro mechanistic study confirmed its target by inhibition of reverse transcriptase and protease enzymes. Additionally, the generation of mitochondrial ROS was detected by the MitoSOX and DCF-DA probe through confocal microscopy. Furthermore, our results confirmed that C-PC treatment notably subdued the fluorescence in the presence of the virus, thus reduction of ROS and the activation of caspase-3/7 in HIV-1-infected cells. Overall, our study suggests C-PC as a potent and broad in vitro antiviral and antioxidant agent against HIV-1 infection.

Purification, biochemical characterization, and DPP-IV and α-amylase inhibitory activity of Berberine from Cardiospermum halicacabum.

Diabetes mellitus (DM) has spread across the globe, increasing the risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease, and other comorbidities. Despite substantial research into the development of diabetic treatments that are effective in lowering blood glucose levels, their efficiency is short-lived due to unpleasant side effects such as weight gain and hypoglycemia. The discovery of secondary metabolites in the prevention and treatment of diabetes and its complications has an incentive to take interest in plant-based medications, and enzyme inhibitors have the potential to aid in the treatment and management of DM. This study aims to isolate, characterize, and analyse the influence of berberine-like alkaloids from alcoholic Cardiospermum halicacabum extract in vitro and in silico, as a possible inhibitor of Dipeptidyl peptidase-IV (DPP-IV) and α-amylase, two essential enzymes involved in diabetes. The alkaloid from C. halicacabum was identified as berberine, with an m/z of 336.1263. Purified berberine inhibits DPP-IV with an IC50 of 16.328 ± 1.344 µM and inhibits α-amylase by 72% at 10 µg/mL. In-silico studies demonstrated that berberine was found to bind to the active site of both DPP-IV and α-amylase. The precise mechanism underlying the observation has to be researched further in order to investigate C. halicacabum's anti-diabetic effects and argue for its possible application as alternative medicine.

Exploring the molecular interaction of pheniramine with Enterococcus faecalis homoserine kinase: In-silico studies.

Infections caused by the bacteria Enterococcus faecalis (also known as E. faecalis) are common in hospitals. This bacterium is resistant to a wide range of medicines and causes a variety of nosocomial infections. An increase in the number of infections caused by multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria is causing substantial economic and health issues around the world. Consequently, new therapeutic techniques to tackle the growing threat of E. faecalis infections must be developed as soon as possible. In this regard, we have targeted a protein that is regarded to be critical for the survival of bacteria in this experiment. Homoserine kinase (HSK) is a threonine metabolism enzyme that belongs to the GHMP kinase superfamily. It is a crucial enzyme in threonine metabolism. This enzyme is responsible for a critical step in the threonine biosynthesis pathway. Given the important function that E. faecalis Homoserine Kinase (ESK) plays in bacterial metabolism, we report here cloning, expression, purification and structural studies of E. faecalis HSK using homology modelling. In addition, we have reported on the model's molecular docking and Molecular Dynamic Stimulation (MD Stimulation) investigations to validate the results of the docking experiments. The results were promising. In silico investigations came up with the conclusion: pheniramine has good binding affinity for the E. faecalis HSK.

Exploration of freely available web-interfaces for comparative homology modelling of microbial proteins.

AIM: This study was conducted to find the best suited freely available software for modelling of proteins by taking a few sample proteins. The proteins used were small to big in size with available crystal structures for the purpose of benchmarking. Key players like Phyre2, Swiss-Model, CPHmodels-3.0, Homer, (PS)2, (PS)(2)-V(2), Modweb were used for the comparison and model generation. RESULTS: Benchmarking process was done for four proteins, Icl, InhA, and KatG of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and RpoB of Thermus Thermophilus to get the most suited software. Parameters compared during analysis gave relatively better values for Phyre2 and Swiss-Model. CONCLUSION: This comparative study gave the information that Phyre2 and Swiss-Model make good models of small and large proteins as compared to other screened software. Other software was also good but is often not very efficient in providing full-length and properly folded structure.