In Vitro Bactericidal Activities of Extracts From Ripe and Unripe Fruit of 'Noni'

In an era of nutraceuticular research, ‘Noni’ fruit is considered as a panacea because of the profound claim on its medicinal uses in treating many diseases inclusive of infections of microbial origin. Hence, the present study was done to know the antibacterial activity of aqueous extracts from ripe and unripe fruits of ‘Noni’ Morinda citrifolia L on gastroenteritic and pyogenic bacteria. The study was done for eight gastroenteritic bacteria and six pyogenic bacteria. The estimation of antibacterial activity of the ripe fruit & unripe fruit extract were carried out by serial two fold tube dilution techniques. Minimum Bactericidal Concentration of the ripe as well as unripe fruit extracts for the susceptible bacteria were estimated by Recovery plate method. Both the Unripe and ripe fruit extracts exhibited nearly equal and effective activity. As the unripe fruit is devoid of unpleasant odour, the unripe fruit is preferable over the ripe fruit extrac

Malacitanolide, reissantin E and paclitaxel compounds as inhibitors of envelope, NS5 and NS2B/NS3 target proteins of dengue virus: Computational docking and molecular dynamics simulations studies

Objective: The objective of this study is to find out the role of terpenoid compounds as potential inhibitors against certain protein targets of dengue virus. Methods: The 2-dimensional structures of terpenoid compounds were retrieved from the PubChem database. They were analysed for their interactions with target proteins of dengue virus such as envelope (1OKE), NS5 (1R6A-RPV & SHA) and NS2B/NS3 (4M9K) by docking studies followed by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations using Schrödinger software, version 10.7. Results: Out of 513 terpenoid compounds studied, malacitanolide showed the highest interaction energy values of −7.072 kcal/mol (hydrogen bond (HB) interactions with Thr280, Gln200, Gln271, Gln49 and Ala50), −5.295 kcal/mol (HB interactions with Ser150, Lys29, Ser214) and −4.030 kcal/mol (HB interactions with Glu1169 and Asn1119) against 1OKE, 1R6A-RPV and 4M9K targets, respectively. Paclitaxel had shown the interaction energy value of −9.334 kcal/mol (HB with Lys61, Asp146, Trp87, Gly148, and Arg84) with 1R6A-SAH. MD simulation studies revealed that the best interacting compound malacitanolide maintained a stable complex with 1OKE of dengue virus. Malacitanolide, reissantin E, and paclitaxel exhibited very good interactions with all three-protein targets of dengue virus and had also shown significant stability. Conclusions: In the present study, it is concluded that the terpenoid compounds malacitanolide, reissantin E, and paclitaxel could act as potential inhibitors against all three target proteins of dengue virus