Molecular modeling and identification of novel glucokinase activators through stepwise virtual screening.

The glucose phosphorylating enzyme glucokinase (GK) is a 50kD monomeric protein having 465 amino acids. It maintains glucose homeostasis inside cells, acts as a glucose sensor in pancreatic β-cells and as a rate controlling enzyme for hepatic glucose clearance and glycogen synthesis. It has two binding sites, one for binding d-glucose and the other for a putative allosteric activator named glucokinase activator (GKA).

Effect of polyherbal mixtures on the treatment of diabetes.

The study focuses on polyherbal antidiabetic formulations of different plants used in the treatment of diabetes mixed in different concentrations. In the present study eleven medicinal plants with proven antidiabetic and related beneficial effects were selected for the preparation of five mixtures. The efficacy of prepared mixtures has been tested on streptozotocin- (STZ-) induced diabetic rats and compared with a commercially available drug glibenclamide.

In silico expressed sequence tag analysis in identification of probable diabetic genes as virtual therapeutic targets.

The expressed sequence tags (ESTs) are major entities for gene discovery, molecular transcripts, and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) analysis as well as functional annotation of putative gene products. In our quest for identification of novel diabetic genes as virtual targets for type II diabetes, we searched various publicly available databases and found 7 reported genes. The in silico EST analysis of these reported genes produced 6 consensus contigs which illustrated some good matches to a number of chromosomes of the human genome.

In silico biology of H1N1: molecular modelling of novel receptors and docking studies of inhibitors to reveal new insight in flu treatment.

Influenza is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae. The new influenza H1N1 viral stain has emerged by the genetic combination of genes from human, pig, and bird's H1N1 virus. The influenza virus is roughly spherical and is enveloped by a lipid membrane.