Near infra-red absorbing Quinolizidine fused curcuminoid-BF chelate and its applications in photodynamic therapy using MCF-7 and A549 cells.

Metal-free near-infrared absorbing photosensitizers (PS) have been considered promising candidates for photodynamic therapy. Curcumin, curcuminoid, and its derivatives have therapeutic values due to their anti-inflammatory, antifungal, and antiproliferative properties. Curcuminoid-BF chelates have also been studied as cell imaging probes, however, their applications in photodynamic therapy are rare.

A-kinase anchoring proteins are enriched in the central pair microtubules of motile cilia in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

Cilia are microtubule-based sensory organelles present in a number of eukaryotic cells. Mutations in the genes encoding ciliary proteins cause ciliopathies in humans. A-kinase anchoring proteins (AKAPs) tether ciliary signaling proteins such as protein kinase A (PKA).

Insights into the evolution of mutations in SARS-CoV-2 non-spike proteins.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been driven by the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants with mutations across all the viral proteins. Although mutations in the spike protein have received significant attention, understanding the prevalence and potential impact of mutations in other viral proteins is essential for comprehending the evolution of SARS-CoV-2. Here, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of approximately 14 million sequences of SARS-CoV-2 deposited in the GISAID database until December 2022 to identify prevalent mutations in the non-spike proteins at the global and country levels.

Ionic Liquid Assisted Exothermic Complexation of Trivalent Lanthanides with Fluorinated β Diketone: Multitechnique Approach with Theoretical Insight.

The complexation of the betadiketone,1,1,1,2,2,3,3-heptafluoro-7,7-dimethyl-4,6-octanedione (HFOD) was studied with trivalent lanthanide ions, viz. Nd, La, and Eu in several methylimidazolium-based ionic liquids (Cmim•NTf, where, = 4,6,8). In Cmim•NTf, predominant formation of ML and ML species was evidenced from the UV-vis absorption (Nd) as well as luminescence (Eu) spectral studies with log β ≈ 5.

Improved energy spread in the radiation pressure acceleration of protons with a linearly polarized laser.

Degradation in the energy spread of accelerated protons due to the transverse instability induced transparency is one of the critical issues in the laser-driven radiation pressure acceleration (RPA) scheme. This issue is more severe for linearly polarized lasers due to enhanced heating of electrons. Therefore, in spite of being experimentally challenging, most of the numerical studies are performed with circularly polarized lasers.

Smart Delivery Systems Responsive to Cathepsin B Activity for Cancer Treatment.

Cathepsin B is a lysosomal cysteine protease, contributing to vital cellular homeostatic processes including protein turnover, macroautophagy of damaged organelles, antigen presentation, and in the extracellular space, it takes part in tissue remodeling, prohormone processing, and activation. However, aberrant overexpression of cathepsin B and its enzymatic activity is associated with different pathological conditions, including cancer. Cathepsin B overexpression in tumor tissues makes this enzyme an important target for smart delivery systems, responsive to the activity of this enzyme.

A reaction network scheme for hidden Markov model parameter learning.

With a view towards artificial cells, molecular communication systems, molecular multiagent systems and federated learning, we propose a novel reaction network scheme (termed the Baum-Welch (BW) reaction network) that learns parameters for hidden Markov models (HMMs). All variables including inputs and outputs are encoded by separate species. Each reaction in the scheme changes only one molecule of one species to one molecule of another.

Correlating cryo-super resolution radial fluctuations and dual-axis cryo-scanning transmission electron tomography to bridge the light-electron resolution gap.

Visualization of organelles and their interactions with other features in the native cell remains a challenge in modern biology. We have introduced cryo-scanning transmission electron tomography (CSTET), which can access 3D volumes on the scale of 1 micron with a resolution of nanometers, making it ideal for this task. Here we introduce two relevant advances: (a) we demonstrate the utility of multi-color super-resolution radial fluctuation light microscopy under cryogenic conditions (cryo-SRRF), and (b) we extend the use of deconvolution processing for dual-axis CSTET data.

Recent Advancement in H-BINOL Catalyzed Asymmetric Methodologies.

H-BINOL, a partially reduced form of BINOL, is widely employed in a broad array of organocatalyzed asymmetric methodologies. Over the last 25 years, asymmetric organocatalysis has witnessed an incredible improvement, and an advancement still continues to get a single enantio-enriched product. The broad-spectrum applications of H-BINOL organocatalyst in C-C bond formation, C-heteroatom bond construction, name reactions, pericyclic reactions, and one pot and multicomponent reaction are attracting the attention of researchers.

Isolation and characterization of extracellular vesicles from Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense, a banana wilt pathogen.

Fusarium wilt of banana is a destructive widespread disease caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc) that ravaged banana plantations globally, incurring huge economic losses.

Appearing and disappearing acts of cilia.

The past few decades have seen a rise in research on vertebrate cilia and ciliopathy, with interesting collaborations between basic and clinical scientists. This work includes studies on ciliary architecture, composition, evolution, and organelle generation and its biological role. The human body has cells that harbour any of the following four types of cilia: 9+0 motile, 9+0 immotile, 9+2 motile, and 9+2 immotile.

Coarsening, condensates, and extremes in aggregation-fragmentation models.

We use extreme value statistics to study the dynamics of coarsening in aggregation-fragmentation models which form condensates in the steady state. The dynamics is dominated by the formation of local condensates on a coarsening length scale which grows in time in both the zero range process and conserved mass aggregation model. The local condensate mass distribution exhibits scaling, which implies anomalously large fluctuations, with mean and standard deviation both proportional to the coarsening length.

Nano-ayurvedic medicine and its potential in cancer treatment.

Nano-ayurvedic medicine is an emerging field in which nanoparticles are functionalized with active principles of potent ayurvedic herbs to enhance their efficacy and target-specific delivery. Scientific advances in the past couple of decades have revealed the molecular mechanisms behind the anticancer potential of several ayurvedic herbs, attributed chiefly to their secondary metabolites including polyphenols and other active substances. With the advancement of nanotechnology, it has been established that size-, shape-, and surface-chemistry-optimized nanoparticles can be utilized as synergizing carriers for these phytochemicals.

Effect of UV Stress on the Structure and Function of Pro-apoptotic Bid and Anti-apoptotic Bcl-xl proteins.

Ultraviolet C (UV-C) radiation induces apoptosis in mammalian cells via the mitochondrion-mediated pathway. The Bcl-2 family of proteins are the regulators of the mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis and appears responsive to UV-C radiation. It is unknown how the structure and, effectively, the function of these proteins are directly impacted by UV-C exposure.

Pyrogallol, Corilagin and Chebulagic acid target the "fuzzy coat" of alpha-synuclein to inhibit the fibrillization of the protein.

The accumulation of the intrinsically disordered protein alpha-synuclein (αSyn) in the form of insoluble fibrillar aggregates in the central nervous system is linked to a variety of neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease, Lewy body dementia, and multiple system atrophy. Here we show that Pyrogallol, Corilagin and Chebulagic acid, compounds containing a different number of catechol rings, are independently capable of delaying and reducing the extent of αSyn fibrillization. The efficiency of inhibition was found to correlate with the number of catechol rings.

Strategic optimization of conditions for the solubilization of GST-tagged amphipathic helix-containing ciliary proteins overexpressed as inclusion bodies in E. coli.

Expression of affinity-tagged recombinant proteins for crystallography, protein-protein interaction, antibody generation, therapeutic applications, etc. mandates the generation of high-yield soluble proteins. Although recent developments suggest the use of yeast, insect, and mammalian cell lines as protein expression platforms, Escherichia coli is still the most popular, due mainly to its ease of growth, feasibility in genetic manipulation and economy.

Combating planktonic and biofilm growth of Serratia marcescens by repurposing ebselen.

Aim Of The Study: The rising instances of multidrug-resistant pathogens are rapidly evolving into a global healthcare crisis. Identifying new ways of synthesis of antibiotics is both time-consuming and expensive. Repurposing existing drugs for the treatment of such antimicrobial-resistant pathogens has also been explored.

Tryptone-stabilized silver nanoparticles' potential to mitigate planktonic and biofilm growth forms of Serratia marcescens.

Several microbial pathogens are capable of forming biofilms. These microbial communities pose a serious challenge to the healthcare sector as they are quite difficult to combat. Given the challenges associated with the antibiotic-based management of biofilms, the research focus has now been shifted towards finding alternate treatment strategies that can replace or complement the antibacterial properties of antibiotics.

Disorder in the Human Skp1 Structure is the Key to its Adaptability to Bind Many Different Proteins in the SCF Complex Assembly.

Skp1(S-phase kinase-associated protein 1 - Homo sapiens) is an adapter protein of the SCF(Skp1-Cullin1-Fbox) complex, which links the constant components (Cul1-RBX) and the variable receptor (F-box proteins) in Ubiquitin E3 ligase. It is intriguing how Skp1 can recognise and bind to a variety of structurally different F-box proteins. For practical reasons, previous efforts have used truncated Skp1, and thus it has not been possible to track the crucial aspects of the substrate recognition process.

PLAS-5k: Dataset of Protein-Ligand Affinities from Molecular Dynamics for Machine Learning Applications.

Computational methods and recently modern machine learning methods have played a key role in structure-based drug design. Though several benchmarking datasets are available for machine learning applications in virtual screening, accurate prediction of binding affinity for a protein-ligand complex remains a major challenge. New datasets that allow for the development of models for predicting binding affinities better than the state-of-the-art scoring functions are important.

Ultrafast Dynamics of Photoinduced Electron Transfer in Bay-Aryl-Substituted Perylene Diimide Derivatives.

Blends of donors and acceptors have been widely used in bulk-heterojunction solar cells to have exciton formation and charge separation by photoinduced electron transfer (PET). In this work, we have synthesized perylene diimide (PDI)-based materials having different aryl substituents at the bay positions (, , and ) to understand the excited-state dynamics of electron transfer. The detailed photophysics was studied using steady-state as well as ultrafast dynamics of the excited states in different solvents.

In silico insight of cell-death-related proteins in photosynthetic cyanobacteria.

Cyanobacteria are a large group of ubiquitously found photosynthetic prokaryotes that are constantly exposed to different kinds of stressors of varying intensities and seem to overcome these in a precise and regulated manner. However, a high dose and duration of given stress induce cell death in a few select cyanobacteria, mainly to protect other cells (altruism). Despite the recent findings for the presence of biochemical and molecular hallmarks of cell death in cyanobacteria, it is yet a sketchily understood phenomenon.

In vitro characterization and molecular dynamic simulation of shikonin as a tubulin-targeted anticancer agent.

Shikonin (SK), a naphthoquinone compound from the purple gromwell, Lithospermum erythrorhizon, possesses a considerable antiproliferative potential. By using a combination of biophysical techniques, cellular assays, immunofluorescence imaging, and molecular dynamic simulation, we identified a possible mechanism of action of SK. SK inhibited the viability of the triple negative breast cancer cells MDA-MB-231 (IC of 1 ± 0.

Mechanistic insights into encapsulation and release of drugs in colloidal niosomal systems: biophysical aspects.

Vesicular systems such as niosomes provide an alternative to improve drug delivery systems. The efficiency of a drug delivery vehicle is strongly dependent on its components which decide its interaction with partitioned drug(s) and locus of site of partitioning. A quantitative understanding of the physical chemistry underlying partitioning of drugs in complex systems of self-assemblies such as niosomes is scarcely available.