Does improved oleic acid content due to marker-assisted introgression of ahFAD2 mutant alleles in peanuts alter its mineral and vitamin composition?

Peanuts (Arachis hypogaea L.) with high oleic acid content have extended shelf life and several health benefits. Oleic, linoleic, and palmitic acid contents in peanuts are regulated by ahFAD2A and ahFAD2B mutant alleles. In the present study, ahFAD2A and ahFAD2B mutant alleles from SunOleic 95R were introgressed into two popular peanut cultivars, GG-7 and TKG19A, followed by markers-assisted selection (MAS) and backcrossing (MABC). A total of 22 MAS and three MABC derived lines were developed with increased oleic acid (78–80%) compared to those of GG 7 (40%) and TKG 19A (50%). Peanut kernel mineral and vitamin composition remained unchanged, while potassium content was altered in high oleic ingression lines. Two introgression lines, HOMS Nos. 37 and 113 had over 10% higher pooled pod yield than respective best check varieties. More than 70% recurrent parent genome recovery was observed in HOMS-37 and HOMS-113 through recombination breeding. However, the absence of recombination in the vicinity of the target locus resulted in its precise introgression along with ample background genome recovery. Selected introgression lines could be released for commercial cultivation based on potential pod yield and oleic acid content

<i style="">In silico </i>identification of putative drug targets in <i style="">Klebsiella pneumonia </i>MGH78578<i style=""></i>

432-439The prolonged use of antibiotics over the years has transformed many organisms into resistant to multiple drugs. Klebsiella pneumoniae MGH78578, a causative agent for respiratory and urinary tract infections, is one of the few Gram-negative bacteria, which has developed resistance to drugs. The present study was carried out to identify potential drug targets in K. pneumonia that might facilitate the discovery of novel drugs in near future. The present study has followed an in silico based approach for identification of drug targets. The comparison and analysis of proteomes of the causal organism and humans was made to screen out non-homologous proteins. Further, studies were carried out to list out essential proteins of the organism. KEGG pathway analysis was carried out to study the function of proteins. Different databases were used to find novel drug targets and various tools were used for the prediction of sub-cellular localization and membrane proteins. From the detailed analysis, 105 novel drug targets were identified, which have been involved in 24 specific pathways of K. pneumoniae MGH78578. Thirty nine proteins were predicted as outer membrane proteins, which could be used as potential vaccine candidates

HaloBase: development of database system for halophilic bacteria and archaea with respect to proteomics, genomics & other molecular traits

976-981This study presents HaloBase, a specialized genome database for halophilic bacteria and archaea, which covers molecular aspects and diversity based studies. In HaloBase, 23 organisms were selected and integrated their detailed information consisting more than 55,000 genes, about 50,000 proteins with the functionality to view its 3D structure and about 1,000 structural RNAs. The database, available at http://halobase.info, will provide a platform for storage and analysis of halophiles for research and commercial purposes

Pharmacophore-based virtual screening of catechol-o-methyltransferase (COMT) inhibitors to combat Alzheimer’s disease

<p>Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most significant neurodegenerative disorders and its symptoms mostly appear in aged people. Catechol-o-methyltransferase (COMT) is one of the known target enzymes responsible for AD. With the use of 23 known inhibitors of COMT, a query has been generated and validated by screening against the database of 1500 decoys to obtain the GH score and enrichment value. The crucial features of the known inhibitors were evaluated by the online ZINC Pharmer to identify new leads from a ZINC database. Five hundred hits were retrieved from ZINC Pharmer and by ADMET (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity) filtering by using FAF-Drug-3 and 36 molecules were considered for molecular docking. From the COMT inhibitors, opicapone, fenoldopam, and quercetin were selected, while ZINC63625100_413 ZINC39411941_412, ZINC63234426_254, ZINC63637968_451, and ZINC64019452_303 were chosen for the molecular dynamics simulation analysis having high binding affinity and structural recognition. This study identified the potential COMT inhibitors through pharmacophore-based inhibitor screening leading to a more complete understanding of molecular-level interactions.</p