How ‘pill for every ill’-alarming source of polypharmacy in elderly patient

According to WHO there is one elderly person i.e., age 60 year or older in every nine people and this value is expected to increase by 2050 accounting for about half of the total growth of the world population. This demographic transition poses a significant challenge for health care authorities as the age advances multiple chronic disease such as hypertension, DM, arthritis, chronic heart disease, renal disease come in to scenario. For the above-mentioned disease an elderly patient has to take life-long medications this leads to polypharmacy

Computational screening of anticancer drugs targeting miRNA155 synthesis in breast cancer

miRNAs have been identified to play a crucial role in carcinogenesis through their binding to various regulatory proteins. One such causative molecule identified as miRNA155, which when overexpressed is responsible for carcinogenesis and also leads to telomere fragility. miRNA155 levels in the blood are used for early screening of cancer. Several anticancer drugs such as doxorubicin have been identified, which act by binding to DNA and DNA binding enzymes to check their expression levels. In this study doxorubicin and its similar compounds were used to analyze their binding with miR155 DNA for inhibition of miRNA155 synthesis and their binding energies were calculated. Based on the docking, ADME, and toxicity results Morpholinyl Doxorubicin was used for molecular dynamics studies and was identified as a potential drug candidate

Marchantia polymorpha L.: An Emerging Model Plant System to Study Contemporary Plant Biology – A Review

The liverwort, Marchantia polymorpha L., one of the species of first land plants is a promising model plant system for the analysis of diverse facets of contemporary plant biology. The unique characteristics of the plant such as dominant haploid gametophytic generation enables the isolation and disruption of mutant for genetic analysis, rapid sexual and asexual reproduction can be induced under controlled conditions which leads to the formation of genetically homogenous lines and also the complete organelle genome sequence of chloroplast and mitochondria has been established. In addition, the ongoing whole genome sequencing of M. polymorpha by the community sequencing plan at the Joint Genome Institute specifies the conservation of several mechanisms of biological science that are instituted in other terrestrial plants in a smaller extent of intricacy. Thus, with the development of several feasible and reliable genetic transformation strategies, in vitro cell culture, gene silencing, targeted gene modification and its critical evolutionary position make this plant as a potential model plant to study evolutionary and developmental biology in detail

Computational Modelling of Tetraodon nigroviridis Melanocortin-1 Receptor (MC1R) Protein and Identification of Natural Compounds as Putative Modulators

705-708In ornamental fisheries, body ornamentation, including the body colour, is of great economic importance. Melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R) gene is primarily responsible for pigmentation in the majority of the vertebrates, and its modulation will help to understand the pigmentation and external body coloration. The present study was aimed to predict the MC1R tertiary protein structure of Tetraodon nigroviridis through homology modelling and to identify putative modulators. The tertiary protein structure of the MC1R protein of T. nigroviridis was homology modelled and validated. BLAHtetrone with binding efficiency of -9.7 kcal/mol was identified as a putative modulator of the MC1R protein

Peat moss: A hyper-sorbent for oil spill cleanup - a review

Peat moss, a well-known hyper-sorbent is now gaining attention for its utilization in oil-spill cleanup techniques because of its cost-effectiveness, biodegradability and relatively high oil absorption capacities. This review mainly emphasis on the characteristic features of the peat moss such as high porosity and large surface area which make it an efficient natural sorbent material for cleaning up oil spills. There are several products which have been developed from the peat moss and are commercially available in the market for oil spill cleanup

Detection of Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase Gene Re-Arrangement in Non-Small Cell Lung Carcinoma in the Indian Population: Comparison of Techniques and Immunohistochemistry Clones

Objective: Predictive and prognostic markers have revolutionized personalized therapy in non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). Crizotinib is now approved for locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC that is anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) positive by either Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) or immunohistochemistry (IHC). The current study aimed to detect the incidence of ALK gene re-arrangement in the Indian population, to compare the various IHC antibodies with FISH as a gold standard, and to analyze the morphology of cases with ALK phenotype. Material and Method: A case series of 614 cases of NSCLC were included. IHC for detection of ALK phenotype was compared with FISH using 5A4 clone (Labvision, USA), ALK-1(Dako, Denmark) and D5F3 clone (Ventana, USA). Results: ALK gene rearrangement was evident in 4.07% of the cases. Cases with ALK phenotype had unique histomorphology with presence of mucin or signet ring cells in association with necrosis, high tumour grade and poor differentiation. Comparison of various antibody clones used in IHC revealed that the sensitivity and specificity using the D5F3 clone (100%, 100%) and 5A4 clone (87.5%, 100%) were similar while the ALK-1 clone had the lowest sensitivity and specificity (50%, 95.5%). Conclusion: The incidence of ALK gene rearrangement in NSCLC in the current Indian study is within the worldwide reported range of 3-5%. This is the first study from the Indian subcontinent to compare various IHC antibodies used for detection of ALK phenotype. IHC using D5F3 clone and 5A4 clone may be considered as a rapid reliable and inexpensive method for detection of ALK gene rearrangement

Search for invisible decays of the Higgs boson produced via vector boson fusion in proton-proton collisions at s\sqrt{s} = 13 TeV

A search for invisible decays of the Higgs boson produced via vector boson fusion (VBF) has been performed with 101  fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions delivered by the LHC at $\sqrt{s}$ =13  TeV and collected by the CMS detector in 2017 and 2018. The sensitivity to the VBF production mechanism is enhanced by constructing two analysis categories, one based on missing transverse momentum and a second based on the properties of jets. In addition to control regions with Z and W boson candidate events, a highly populated control region, based on the production of a photon in association with jets, is used to constrain the dominant irreducible background from the invisible decay of a Z boson produced in association with jets. The results of this search are combined with all previous measurements in the VBF topology, based on data collected in 2012 (at $\sqrt{s}$ =8  TeV), 2015, and 2016, corresponding to integrated luminosities of 19.7, 2.3, and 36.3  fb$^{-1}$, respectively. The observed (expected) upper limit on the invisible branching fraction of the Higgs boson is found to be 0.18 (0.10) at the 95% confidence level, assuming the standard model production cross section. The results are also interpreted in the context of Higgs-portal models

Search for top squarks in the four-body decay mode with single lepton final states in proton-proton collisions at s \sqrt{s} = 13 TeV

A search for the pair production of the lightest supersymmetric partner of the top quark, the top squark (t∼1), is presented. The search targets the four-body decay of the t∼1, which is preferred when the mass difference between the top squark and the lightest supersymmetric particle is smaller than the mass of the W boson. This decay mode consists of a bottom quark, two other fermions, and the lightest neutralino (χ∼01), which is assumed to be the lightest supersymmetric particle. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC. Events are selected using the presence of a high-momentum jet, an electron or muon with low transverse momentum, and a significant missing transverse momentum. The signal is selected based on a multivariate approach that is optimized for the difference between m(t∼1) and m(χ∼01). The contribution from leading background processes is estimated from data. No significant excess is observed above the expectation from standard model processes. The results of this search exclude top squarks at 95% confidence level for masses up to 480 and 700 GeV for m(t∼1) − m(χ∼01) = 10 and 80 GeV, respectively