Journal of Chemical Biology

The silk protein from the web of Orthaga exvinacea was isolated, purified, and casted into films. This film was treated separately with methanol, acetone, ethyl acetate, and isopropyl alcohol in 50 % concentration for about 30 min. The treated films were thus dried in a desiccator and subjected to FTIR and TG-DTA analysis. The structural studies revealed that the organic solvents induce conformatory changes in the protein film, especially the most sensitive amide I (1650 cm(-1)) band. This band had shifted to lower wavenumber (1633-1636 cm(-1))...

S-adenosyl-L-homocysteine hydrolase of Plasmodium falciparum (PfSAHH) is a potential drug target against malaria, and selective inhibition of PfSAHH is the excellent strategy to prevent the growth of parasite inside the host. Therefore, a comparative analysis of human S-adenosyl-L-homocysteine hydrolase (HsSAHH) and PfSAHH has been performed to explore the structural differences. Structural superimposition of PfSAHH and HsSAHH has generated the RMSD of 0.749 Å over 394 alpha carbon pairs. Residues of PfSAHH from position Tyr152 to Lys193 aligned with insertion/deletion region in HsSAHH, and these extra residues results in an extent of variation in cavity region of PfSAHH...

In the search of efficient anticancer agents, here, new 5-(4-alkylbenzyledene)thiazolidine-2,4-dione derivatives (5a-g) have been successfully synthesized and characterized and are evaluated for anticancer and antimicrobial activities using DNA cleavage studies. In vitro studies on anticancer activity of compound 5d (NSC: 768619/1) was done against the full panel of 60 human tumor cell lines. The five-level dose activity results revealed that, the compound 5d was active against all the cell lines, it has shown potential activity against leukemia SR (GI50: 2...

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A series of novel 2,5-disubstituted-1,3,4-oxadiazole derivatives were synthesized and screened for their antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. The assay indicated that compounds 3c, 3d, and 3i exhibited comparable antibacterial and antioxidant activity with first-line drugs. The structure activity relationship and molecular docking study of the synthesized compounds are also reported.

Keratinocyte growth factor (KGF) protein is a member of the fibroblast growth factor (FGF) family, which is also known as FGF-7. The FGF-7 plays an important role in tumor angiogenesis. In the present work, FGF-7 is treated as a potential therapeutic target to prevent angiogenesis in cancerous tissue. Computational techniques are applied to evaluate and validate the 3D structure of FGF-7 protein. The active site region of the FGF-7 protein is identified based on hydrophobicity calculations using CASTp and Q-site Finder active site prediction tools...

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2-Phenyl-1H-indole-3-carbaldehyde-based barbituric acid, thiobarbituric acid, thiosemicarbazide, isoniazid, and malononitrile derivatives were synthesized under photochemical conditions. The antitumor activities of the synthesized compounds were evaluated on three different human cancer cell lines representing prostate cancer cell line DU145, Dwivedi (DWD) cancer cell lines, and breast cancer cell line MCF7. All the screened compounds possessed moderate anticancer activity, and out of all the screened compounds, 5-{1[2-(4-chloro-phenyl)2-oxo-ethyl]-2-phenyl-1H-indole-3-ylmethylene}-2-thioxo-dihydro-pyrimidine-4,6-dione (2b) and 5-{1[2-(4-methoxy-phenyl)2-oxo-ethyl]-2-phenyl-1H-indole-3-ylmethylene}-2-thioxo-dihydro-pyrimidine-4,6-dione (2d) exhibited marked antitumor activity against used cell lines...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Elevated expression of NF-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2), a nuclear transcription factor, is a frequent genetic abnormality seen in this malignancy and is an important contributor to chemoresistance in cancer therapy. In the present study, we investigated if Nrf2 was associated with drug resistance in tamoxifen-resistant MCF-7 (MCF-7/TAM) cells, and whether EGCG, major flavonoid isolated from green tea, could reverse drug resistance in MCF-7/TAM cells. Our results showed that the endogenous expression of Nrf2 as well as its target proteins heme oxygenase-1, NADP (H):quinone oxidoreductase in MCF-7/TAM cells was higher than that in MCF-7 cells...

The syntheses of dihydropyrimidinones (DHPMs) using solvent-free grindstone chemistry method. All the synthesized compounds exhibited significant activity against pathogenic bacteria. The current effort has been developed to obtain new DHPM derivatives that focus on the bacterial ribosomal A site RNA as a drug target. Molecular docking simulation analysis was applied to confirm the target specificity of DHPMs. The crystal structure of bacterial 16S rRNA and human 40S rRNA was taken as receptors for docking...

Neurotransmitters are the compounds which allow the transmission of signals from one neuron to the next across synapses. They are the brain chemicals that communicate information throughout brain and body. Fullerenes are a family of carbonallotropes, molecules composed entirely of carbon, that take the forms of spheres, ellipsoids, and cylinders. Various empty carbon fullerenes (Cn) with different carbon atoms have been obtained and investigated. Topological indices have been successfully used to construct effective and useful mathematical methods to establish clear relationships between structural data and the physical properties of these materials...

An initial proteomic analysis of the cuprizone mouse model to characterise the breadth of toxicity by assessing cortex, skeletal muscle, spleen and peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Cuprizone treated vs. control mice for an initial characterisation. Select tissues from each group were pooled, analysed in triplicate using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) and deep imaging and altered protein species identified using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS). Forty-three proteins were found to be uniquely detectable or undetectable in the cuprizone treatment group across the tissues analysed...

Recent studies have shown that ozone (O3) is endogenously generated in living tissues, where it makes both positive and negative physiological contributions. A pathway for the formation of both O3 and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) was previously proposed, beginning with the antibody or amino acid-catalyzed oxidation of water by singlet oxygen ((1)O2) to form hydrogen trioxide (H2O3) as a key intermediate. A key pillar of this hypothesis is that some of the H2O2 molecules incorporate water-derived oxygen atoms. However, H2O3 decomposes extremely readily in water to form (1)O2 and water, rather than O3 and H2O2...

Correlative microscopy is a powerful imaging approach that refers to observing the same exact structures within a specimen by two or more imaging modalities. In biological samples, this typically means examining the same sub-cellular feature with different imaging methods. Correlative microscopy is not restricted to the domains of fluorescence microscopy and electron microscopy; however, currently, most correlative microscopy studies combine these two methods, and in this review, we will focus on the use of fluorescence and electron microscopy...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

A new series of steroidal dihydrocarbothioic acid amido pyrazole analogues were synthesized, and after characterization, evaluation for cytotoxicity, comet assay and western blotting was carried out. The synthesis of these analogues is convenient and involves two steps, i.e. aldol condensation as first step followed by nucleophilic addition of thiosemicarbazide across α, β-unsaturated carbonyl as a later step. Quantitative yields of more than 80 % are obtained in both the steps. After characterization by IR, (1)H NMR, (13)C NMR, MS and analytical data, all the compounds of both series were tested for cytotoxic activity against a panel of different human cancer cell lines by MTT assay, during which compound 3e, 3f, 4e, 4f and 4h are very potent especially against HepG2 and MCF-7 cancer cell lines...

Kinetin, a cytokinin which promotes seed germination by inhibiting the action of abscisic acid, is an important molecule known to trigger various molecular mechanisms by interacting with an array of proteins shown from experimental observations in various model organisms. We report here the prediction of most probable protein targets of kinetin from spinach proteome using in silico approaches. Inverse docking and ligand-based similarity search was performed using kinetin as molecule. The former method prioritized six spinach proteins, whereas the latter method provided a list of protein targets retrieved from several model organisms...

Apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease-1/redox effector factor-1 (APE-1) is a critical component of base excision repair that excises abasic lesions created enzymatically by the action of DNA glycosylases on modified bases and non-enzymatically by hydrolytic depurination/depyrimidination of nucleobases. Many anticancer drugs generate DNA adducts that are processed by base excision repair, and tumor resistance is frequently associated with enhanced APE-1 expression. Accordingly, APE-1 is a potential therapeutic target to treat cancer...

A heterocyclic compound 1-propenyl-1,3-dihydro-benzimidazol-2-one was synthesized by a palladium-catalyzed rearrangement reaction. Anticancer activities were confirmed by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay against Neura 2a (neuroblastoma cell), HEK 293 (kidney cancer) and MCF-7 (breast cancer) cell lines at low micromolar range. Furthermore, clear images from phase-contrast and fluorescence microscopes and confocal images unambiguously confirm the cancer cell death. The single X-ray crystal structure of the compound unambiguously proves the structure of the benzimidazolone compound...