Food Security and Nutritional Status among Rural Poor: Evaluating the Impact of Rural Livelihood Mission in Odisha, India

This paper empirically examines the effect of participation in National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) on the food security of rural poor. In parallel, it also introspects the nutritional profiles of the respondents. Data were collected from 220 respondents (including both beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries) through a structured questionnaire from Sonepur district of Odisha (India). For assessing the nutritional profile, the study uses 24 hour recall and food frequency questionnaire methods to collect the information on food consumption. Then food items were converted into their equivalent calories. A food security index (FSI) was constructed to capture the food security taking the average calories of food consumed by the respondents. The study finds a better food consumption pattern among beneficiaries than the non-beneficiaries. Further, the impact of NRLM is examined using randomised control trial method and finds a positive impact of the programme on the food security. That means, participation in the programme helps the beneficiaries to attain food security. Therefore, participation should be encouraged to mitigate the food insecurity problem

Neuroprotective effects of sea buckthorn leaf extract against hypobaric hypoxia and post-hypoxic reoxygenation induced hippocampal damage in rats.

Exposure to hypobaric hypoxia (HBH) and reoxygenation (H/R) causes hippocampal neuronal damage leading to memory dysfunction and mood state alteration. The present study aimed at investigating the potential neuroprotective effect of seabuckthorn leaf extract ((SBTLE)) against HBH and reoxygenation induced neuronal injury in brain. Six groups of male sprague dawley rats were taken and exposed to simulated HBH equivalent at an altitude of 7600m in an animal decompression chamber for 7 days followed by reoxygenation. Rats were supplemented with SBTLE (100mg/kgBW) 20 days prior and during hypoxic exposure. Recovery from injuries following HBH exposure and subsequent reoxygenation was carried out in separate group of animals. Our study revealed that exposure to reoxygenation stress following hypoxia enhanced hypoxia induced oxidative stress in hippocampal neurons which was reversed with SBTLE supplementation. SBTLE restored Hypoxia/Reoxygenation(H/R) induced downregulation of  γ-glutamylcysteine synthetase (GCLC) enzymes responsible for glutathione biosynthesis. Post hypoxic supplementation of SBTLE decreased the reoxygenation induced enhanced oxidative markers, however, administration of SBTLE in conjunction with the inhibitor of GCLC resulted in slow recovery from H/R injuries. These results provide the first evidence of SBTLE   induced increase in glutathione biosynthesis by upregulating GCLC enzyme expression and hence can be used as a promising drug to cure H/R induced neuronal damages

Neuroprotective effects of sea buckthorn leaf extract against hypobaric hypoxia and post-hypoxic reoxygenation induced hippocampal damage in rats.

Exposure to hypobaric hypoxia (HBH) and reoxygenation (H/R) causes hippocampal neuronal damage leading to memory dysfunction and mood state alteration. The present study aimed at investigating the potential neuroprotective effect of seabuckthorn leaf extract ((SBTLE)) against HBH and reoxygenation induced neuronal injury in brain. Six groups of male sprague dawley rats were taken and exposed to simulated HBH equivalent at an altitude of 7600m in an animal decompression chamber for 7 days followed by reoxygenation. Rats were supplemented with SBTLE (100mg/kgBW) 20 days prior and during hypoxic exposure. Recovery from injuries following HBH exposure and subsequent reoxygenation was carried out in separate group of animals. Our study revealed that exposure to reoxygenation stress following hypoxia enhanced hypoxia induced oxidative stress in hippocampal neurons which was reversed with SBTLE supplementation. SBTLE restored Hypoxia/Reoxygenation(H/R) induced downregulation of  γ-glutamylcysteine synthetase (GCLC) enzymes responsible for glutathione biosynthesis. Post hypoxic supplementation of SBTLE decreased the reoxygenation induced enhanced oxidative markers, however, administration of SBTLE in conjunction with the inhibitor of GCLC resulted in slow recovery from H/R injuries. These results provide the first evidence of SBTLE   induced increase in glutathione biosynthesis by upregulating GCLC enzyme expression and hence can be used as a promising drug to cure H/R induced neuronal damages

Enriched environment prevents hypobaric hypoxia induced memory impairment and neurodegeneration: role of BDNF/PI3K/GSK3β pathway coupled with CREB activation.

Adverse environmental conditions such as hypobaric hypoxia (HH) cause memory impairment by affecting cellular machinery leading to neurodegeneration. Providing enriched environment (EE) is found to be beneficial for curing several neurodegenerative disorders. The protective role of EE in preventing HH induced neuronal death has been reported previously but the involved mechanism is still not clearly understood. The present study is an attempt to verify the impact of EE on spatial memory during HH and also to explore the possible role of neurotrophin in EE mediated neuroprotection. Signaling mechanism involved in neuroprotection was also explored. Male Sprague Dawley rats were simulated to HH condition in an Animal Decompression Chamber at an altitude of 25000 feet in standard and enriched cages for 7 days. Spatial memory was assessed through Morris Water Maze. Role of different neurotrophins was explored by gene silencing and inhibitors for their respective receptors. Further, using different blockers signaling pathway was also explored. Finding of the present study suggested that EE prevents HH mediated memory impairment and neurodegeneration. Also brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) plays a major role in EE mediated neuroprotection and it effectively prevented neurodegeneration by activating PI3K/AKT pathway resulting in GSK3β inactivation which further inhibits apoptosis. Moreover GSK3β phosphorylation and hence its inactivation upregulates CREB phosphorylation which may also accounts for activation of survival machinery in cells and provides neuroprotection. From these observations it can be postulated that EE has a therapeutic potential in amelioration of HH induced memory impairment and neurodegeneration. Hence it may be used as a non invasive and non pharmacological intervention against various neurological disorders

Millet Derived Flavonoids as Potential SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease Inhibitors: A Computational Approach

The on-going pandemic COVID-19 has emerged as a major health threat across the globe. At present, anti-viral drug discoveries are of great importance in combating the pandemic. Millets are known to contain numerous flavonoids with potential anti-viral properties. However, their anti-viral efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 is yet to be studied. The study uses the SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro) as the potential drug target and docks with eleven millet derived flavonoids taking HIV protease inhibiting drugs nelfinavir and saquinavir as control. AutoDock Vina was used for assessing the binding affinities and strength of binding of flavonoids present in millets with the target protein Mpro. Further, the drug-likeness and pharmacokinetics properties of these flavonoids were analyzed using admetSAR. The ADMET analysis showed that isoorientin, orientin, vitexin, meletin, catechin, and myricetin possess potential mutagenic property while daidzein could have a negative effect on reproductive making these compounds as poor candidates for drug development against SARS-CoV-2. Based on the docking result and positive ADMET properties, the present study infers that apigenin may be considered as a potential inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2 Mpro and may be further investigated to test its anti-viral activities using in-vitro and in-vivo study

Identification of anti-cyanobacterial leads targeting carbonic anhydrase from phytochemical database using <i>in silico</i> approach

In cyanobacteria, carbonic anhydrase (zinc metalloenzyme) is a major enzyme that converts CO2 to HCO3 maintaining the carbon concentration around the vicinity of RuBisCo, leading to cyanobacterial biomass generation. Anthropogenic activities, disposal of leached micro nutrients effluents from industries into the aquatic environment results in cyanobacterial blooms. The harmful cyanobacteria release cyanotoxins in open-water system which on ingression through oral route causes major health issues like hepatotoxicity and immunotoxicity. A database was prepared consisting of approximately 3k phytochemicals curated from previous literatures, earlier identified by GC-MS analysis. The phytochemicals were subjected to online servers to identify the novel lead molecules which followed ADMET and drug-like candidates. The identified leads were optimized by density functional theory method using B3YLP/G* level of theory. Carbonic anhydrase chosen as target to observe the binding interaction through molecular docking simulations. From the molecules included in the database the highest binding energy exhibited by alpha-tocopherol succinate and mycophenolic acid were found to be -9.23 kcal/mol and -14.41 kcal/mol and displayed interactions with GLY A102, GLN B30, ASP A41, LYS A105 including Zn2+ and their adjacent amino acids CYS 101, HIS 98, CYS 39 in both chain A and chain A-B of carbonic anhydrase. The identified molecular orbitals decipher computed global electrophilicity values (Energy gap, electrophilicity and Softness) of alpha tocopherol succinate and mycophenolic acid were found to be (5.262, 1.948, 0.380) eV and (4.710, 2.805, 0.424) eV demonstrates both molecules are effective and stable. The identified leads may serve as a better anti-carbonic anhydrase agent because they accommodate in the binding site and hampers the catalytic activity of Carbonic anhydrase thus inhibiting the generation of cyanobacterial biomass. This identified lead molecules may serve as a substructure to design novel phytochemicals against carbonic anhydrase present in cyanobacteria. Further in vitro study is necessary to evaluate the efficacy of these molecules

Identification of anti-cyanobacterial leads targeting carbonic anhydrase from phytochemical database using in silico approach

In cyanobacteria, carbonic anhydrase (zinc metalloenzyme) is a major enzyme that converts CO 2 to HCO 3- main¬taining the carbon concentration around the vicinity of RuBisCo, leading to cyanobacterial biomass generation. Anthropogenic activities, disposal of leached micro nutrients effluents from industries into the aquatic en¬viron¬ment results in cyanobacterial blooms. The harmful cyanobacteria release cyanotoxins in open-water system which on ingression through oral route causes major health issues like hepatotoxicity and immunotoxicity. A database was prepared consisting of approximately 3k phytochemicals curated from previous literatures, earlier identified by GC-MS analysis. The phytochemicals were subjected to online servers to identify the novel lead molecules which followed ADMET and drug-like candidates. The identified leads were optimized by density functional theory method using B3YLP/G* level of theory. Carbonic anhydrase chosen as target to observe the binding interaction through molecular docking simulations. From the molecules included in the database the highest binding energy ex¬hibited by alpha-tocopherol succinate and mycophenolic acid were found to be −9.23 kcal/mol and −14.41 kcal/mol and displayed interactions with GLY A102, GLN B30, ASP A41, LYS A105 including Zn 2+ and their adjacent amino acids CYS 101, HIS 98, CYS 39 in both chain A and chain A-B of carbonic anhydrase. The Identified molecular orbitals decipher computed global electrophilicity values (Energy gap, electrophilicity and Softness) of alpha-tocopherol succinate and mycophenolic acid were found to be (5.262, 1.948, 0.380) eV and (4.710, 2.805, 0.424) eV demonstrates both molecules are effective and stable. The identified leads may serve as a better anti-carbonic anhydrase agent because they accommodate in the binding site and hampers the catalytic activity of Carbonic anhydrase thus inhibiting the generation of cyanobacterial biomass. This identified lead mole¬cules may serve as a substructure to design novel phytochemicals against carbonic anhydrase present in cyano¬bacteria. Further in vitro study is necessary to evaluate the efficacy of these molecules

Effect of Trk antagonist on Behavior was studied using Morris Water Maze test and representative tack sheet showing memory test of Normoxia (I), Hypoxia (II), Enriched environment + Hypoxia (III) and Enriched environment + hypoxia + K252a (IV) exposure.

<p>Inhibition of TrkB with K252a nullifies the protective effect of Enriched environment on hypobaric hypoxia induced memory impairment as evident from increased pathlength (A) and latency (B) and decreased No. of platform crossing (C) and time spent in target quadrant (D). Data represents Mean ± SEM. “*” and “#” represents p<0.001 when compared to control and hypoxic group whereas “**” represents p<0.05 when compared to hypoxic group.</p

Shows experimental design describing groups, number of individuals, exposure duration and interventions.

<p>Shows experimental design describing groups, number of individuals, exposure duration and interventions.</p

Role of neurotrophins was assessed using gene silencing technique for TrkA and TrkB receptors.

<p>Results showed that knockdown of TrkB significantly increased caspase3 activity even in presence of enriched environment whereas blocking of TrkA has diminutive effect on caspase3 activity in comparison to TrkB inhibition. To further explore the signaling cascade, ERK and PI3K pathway was blocked with U0216 and Wortmannin respectively and it has been observed that inhibition of PI3K pathway significantly increases caspase3 activity (B) whereas inhibiting ERK pathway have no significant effect in group exposed to hypobaric hypoxia in enriched cage (C). Data represents Mean ± SEM. In “*” and “#” represents p<0.001 when compared to control and hypoxic group while “?”represents p<0.05 when compared to control group.</p