Publications by authors named "Daisy Pitchai"

Unlabelled: Lupeol is a triterpenoid, present in most of the medicinally effective plants and possess a wide range of biological activity against human diseases. The present study aims at evaluating the anticancer potentials of lupeol, isolated from the leaves of Elephantopus scaber L. and thereby explores its action on key cancer marker, Bcl-2.

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Staphylococcus aureus has been recognized as an important human pathogen for more than 100 years. It is among the most important causative agent of human infections in the twenty-first century. DNA ligase is the main protein responsible for the replication of S.

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The recognition of DNA by small molecules is of special importance in the design of new drugs. Many natural and synthetic compounds have the ability to interact with the minor groove of DNA. In the present study, identification of minor groove binding compounds was attained by the combined approach of pharmacophore modelling, virtual screening and molecular dynamics approach.

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Costunolide, a sesquiterpene lactone is a plant-derived secondary metabolite found to be present in most of the pharmacologically active herbs, being the cause for their medicinal values. The present study aims to evaluate the cytotoxic effect of costunolide isolated from Costus speciosus rhizome extract on MDA-MB-231 cells and explore its targeted action in comparison with its action on the normal breast cells (MCF 10A). The effect of costunolide on cell viability of the cells was assessed by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide viability assay.

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Escherichia coli is a common major cause of bacterial infections in tea tribe patients of the northeast region of Assam, India. In this study, we documented multidrug resistance (MDR) and the prevalence of extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs) among 148 E. coli strains that were isolated from bacterial infections in tea tribe patients who had a history of self-medication.

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DNA binding ligands (DBL) were reported to bind the minor groove of bacterial DNA. In the present study, DBL were analyzed and screened for their Staphylococcus inhibitory activity by inhibiting the Staphylococcal DNA replication. The orientation and the ligand-receptor interactions of DBL within the DNA-binding pocket were investigated applying a multi-step docking protocol using Glide and QM/MM docking.

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Design of potential drug-like candidates for cancer is of interest in recent years. We used 60 compounds which are known to have the potential to down regulate Nuclear Factor kappaB (NFκB) for this study. The compounds were assessed for Lipinski's RO5 and ADMET properties.

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Costunolide, a sesquiterpene lactone present in Costus speciosus root exerts a variety of pharmacological activity but its effects on neuroinflammation have not been studied. Microglia, the resident phagocytic cells in the central nervous system respond to neuroinflammation and their overwhelming response in turn aggravate brain damage during infection, ischemia and neurodegenerative diseases. In this study, we report the effect of Costunolide on the production of proinflammatory mediators and mechanisms involved in BV2 microglial cells stimulated with LPS.

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Unlabelled: Pharmacophore feature is defined by a set of chemical structure patterns having the active site of drug like molecule. Pharmacophore can be used to assist in building hypothesis about desirable chemical properties in drug molecule and hence it can be used to refine and modify drug candidates. We predicted the pharmacophoric features of 150 medicinal compounds from plants for anti-cancer, anti-carcinogenic, anti-diabetic, anti-microbial, and anti-oxidant.

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Unlabelled: Plants continue to be a major source of medicines, as they have been throughout human history. In the present days, drug discovery from plants involves a multidisciplinary approach combining ethnobotanical, phytochemical and biological techniques to provide us new chemical compounds (lead molecules) for the development of drugs against various pharmacological targets, including cancer, diabetes and its secondary complications. In view of this need in current drug discovery from medicinal plants, here we describe another web database containing the information of pharmacophore analysis of active principles possessing antidiabetic, antimicrobial, anticancerous and antioxidant properties from medicinal plants.

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Aim Of The Study: Gymnema sylvestre (Asclepiadaceae) is emerging as a potential treatment for the management of diabetes. The leaves are used in herbal medicine preparations. The present study was carried out to isolate and identify the putative antidiabetic compound based on bioassay-guided fractionation.

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Diabetes mellitus is the most common and serious metabolic disorder among people all over the world. Many plants have successfully been used to overcome this problem. Costus speciosus is widely used in Indian medicine to treat various diseases including diabetes.

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Unlabelled: Effective treatment of diabetes is increasingly dependent on active constituents of medicinal plants capable of controlling hyperglycemia as well as its secondary complications. Sensing the importance of documenting such medicinal plants, here we describe a web database containing information (name, literature citation, active compounds and few related full text articles) of the diabetes medicinal plants exhibiting hypoglycemic, antioxidant and antimicrobial effects.

Availability: http://www.

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