The current Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is highly contagious infection that breaks the healthcare systems of several countries worldwide. Till to date, no effective antiviral drugs against COVID-19 infection have reached the market, and some repurposed drugs and vaccines are prescribed for the treatment and prevention of this disease. The currently prescribed COVID-19 vaccines are less effective against the newly emergent variants of concern of SARS-CoV-2 due to several mutations in viral spike protein and obviously there is an urgency to develop new antiviral drugs against this disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite recent advances in single-molecule and structural analysis of condensin activity in vitro, mechanisms of functional condensin loading and loop extrusion that lead to specific chromosomal organization remain unclear. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the most prominent condensin loading site is the rDNA locus on chromosome XII, but its repetitiveness deters rigorous analysis of individual genes. An equally prominent non-rDNA condensin site is located on chromosome III (chrIII).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The current COVID-19 pandemic from the human pathogenic virus SARS-CoV-2 has resulted in a major health hazard globally. The morbidity and transmission modality of this disease are severe and uncontrollable. As no effective clinical drugs are available for treatment of COVID-19 infection till to date and only vaccination is used as prophylaxis and its efficacy is restricted due to emergent of new variants of SARS-CoV-2, there is an urgent need for effective drugs for its treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurrently an emerging human pathogenic coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), caused coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that has posed a serious threat to public health worldwide. As it is a novel severe pneumonia-type viral disease, no effective therapeutic agents are available to treat this infection to date, emphasizing an urgent need for development of effective anti-SARS-CoV-2 agents. Based on screening in computational biology and biological in vitro assays, a good number of natural compounds and their synthetic analogues have been confirmed to possess target-specific inhibitory effects against the activity of host and viral proteases, namely, cathepsin-L, TMPRSS2, Sec61, Mpro (3CL-protease), RNA-dependent RNA protease (RdRp), helicase cap-binding proteases eEF1A, eIF4A, eIF4E, which play dominant roles in progression of infection and replication of SARS-CoV-2 virus in host cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdv Protein Chem Struct Biol
February 2021
Obesity and diabetes are the most prevailing chronic metabolic diseases worldwide from mainly lipid and glucose metabolic dysfunctions and their incidence is increasing at an alarming high rate. Obesity is characterized by excess fat accumulation in WAT and liver and is the central player of insulin resistance in the peripheral tissues from chronic inflammation, lipotoxicity and gut dysbiosis, and plays a key role for development of type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and vascular diseases. Diabetes mellitus, known as diabetes, is chiefly characterized by hyperglycaemia from impaired insulin secretion and insulin resistance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDNA double-stranded breaks (DSBs) are strongly associated with active transcription, and promoter-proximal pausing of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) is a critical step in transcriptional regulation. Mapping the distribution of DSBs along actively expressed genes and identifying the location of DSBs relative to pausing sites can provide mechanistic insights into transcriptional regulation. Using genome-wide DNA break mapping/sequencing techniques at single-nucleotide resolution in human cells, we found that DSBs are preferentially located around transcription start sites of highly transcribed and paused genes and that Pol II promoter-proximal pausing sites are enriched in DSBs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Tradit Complement Med
January 2021
Background And Aim: The leaves of Linn (niú x ınguǒ; Bullock's heart), a member of Annonaceae family, have been used extensively in folk medicine; however, its wound healing potential is yet to be explored. Our aim was to investigate the wound healing ability of leaf extract and in streptozotocin induced diabetic mice model.
Material And Methods: We observed the plant extract induced proliferation and migration of primary human dermal fibroblast (HDF), human skin fibroblast cell line (GM00637) and human keratinocyte cell line (HACAT).
The NAD+-dependent histone deacetylase Sir2 was originally identified in Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a silencing factor for HML and HMR, the heterochromatic cassettes utilized as donor templates during mating-type switching. MATa cells preferentially switch to MATα using HML as the donor, which is driven by an adjacent cis-acting element called the recombination enhancer (RE). In this study we demonstrate that Sir2 and the condensin complex are recruited to the RE exclusively in MATa cells, specifically to the promoter of a small gene within the right half of the RE known as RDT1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) are the most common age-related neurodegenerative disorders, affecting several millions of aged people globally. Among these disorders, AD is more severe, affecting about 7% of individuals aged 65 and above. AD is primarily a dementia-related disorder from progressive cognitive deterioration and memory impairment, while PD is primarily a movement disorder illness having three major kinesia or movement disorder symptoms, bradykinesia (slowness of movements), hypokinesia (reduction of movement amplitude), and akinesia (absence of normal unconscious movements) along with muscle rigidity and tremor at rest.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe flavonoids, baicalin (5,6-dihydroxy-2-phenyl-4H-1-benzopyran-4-one-7-O-d-β-glucuronic acid) 1 and its aglycone, baicalein 2 are found in edible medicinal plants, Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi and Oroxylum indicum (L.) Kurz in abundant quantities. The antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of these flavonoids have been demonstrated in various disease models, including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, inflammatory bowel diseases, gout and rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, neurodegenerative-, liver- and kidney diseases, encephalomyelitis, and carcinogenesis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Ethnopharmacol
December 2016
Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Cornus mas L. (cornelian cherry) fruits have been used for centuries as traditional cuisine and folk medicine in various countries of Europe and Asia. In folk medicines, the fruits and other parts of the plant have been used for prevention and treatment of a wide range of diseases such as diabetes, diarrhea, gastrointestinal disorders, fevers, rheumatic pain, skin and urinary tract infections, kidney and liver diseases, sunstroke, among others.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe active fraction and/or compounds of Calendula officinalis responsible for wound healing are not known yet. In this work we studied the molecular target of C. officinalis hydroethanol extract (CEE) and its active fraction (water fraction of hydroethanol extract, WCEE) on primary human dermal fibroblasts (HDF).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEthnopharmacological Relevance: Sida L. (Malvaceae) has been used for centuries in traditional medicines in different countries for the prevention and treatment of different diseases such as diarrhea, dysentery, gastrointestinal and urinary infections, malarial and other fevers, childbirth and miscarriage problems, skin ailments, cardiac and neural problems, asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory problems, weight loss aid, rheumatic and other inflammations, tuberculosis, etc.
Aims Of This Review: To assess the scientific evidence for therapeutic potential of Sida L.
Calendula officinalis, a member of the Asteraceae family, is a flowering plant and has been used for its antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, antiinflammatory, anticancer and wound healing activity. The mode of action of C. officinalis tincture on wound healing is poorly understood.
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