In silico design of potent agonists for human PPAR γ

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR γ) acts as a key regulator on adipocyte differentiation and glucose homeostasis. PPAR γ has been implicated in the pathology of type 2 diabetes. As human PPAR γ activity is considered important in improving insulin sensitivity, in silico screening was carried out to find potent agonists for human PPAR γ protein. The co-crystal structure of PPAR γ, solved through X-Ray diffraction method was retrieved from the protein data bank. Four PPAR γ agonists selected from literature were submitted to subsequent 2D searching protocol using Ligand.Info, which yielded 1699 structural analogs. The PPAR γ co-crystal structure and ligand dataset were preprocessed using protein preparation wizard and LigPrep, respectively. Further, docking was performed by using three phased docking protocol of Maestro v9.2 that implements Glide v5.7. The obtained thirteen leads through docking were compared with the existing inhibitors and seven leads with good binding affinity with PPAR γ were proposed. The binding orientations of the seven leads were coinciding well with the native co-crystal structure of human PPAR γ. Thus, the proposed seven leads can be suggested as potential agonists for improving insulin sensitivity in the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus if synthesized and validated in animal model

IN VITRO ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITIES OF THE FRACTIONS OF COCCINIA GRANDIS L. LEAF EXTRACT

The present study was aimed at investigating the antioxidant activities of the various fractions of the hydromethanolic extract of the leaves of Coccinia grandis L. Voigt. (Cucurbitaceae). The antioxidant activities of the fractions have been evaluated by using nine in vitro assays and were compared to standard antioxidants such as ascorbic acid, α-tocopherol, curcumin and butylated hydroxyl toluene (BHT). All the fractions showed effective H-donor activity, reducing power, free radical scavenging activity, metal chelating ability and inhibition of β-carotene bleaching. None of the fractions exerted an obvious pro-oxidant activity. The antioxidant property depends upon concentration and increased with increasing amount of the fractions. The free radical scavenging and antioxidant activities may be attributed to the presence of phenolic and flavonoid compounds present in the fractions. The results obtained in the present study indicate that the leaves of C. grandis are a potential source of natural antioxidant

A Study on Intuitionistic Fuzzy Multi Objective LPP into LCP with Neutrosophic Triangular Numbers Approach

In this paper Principal pivoting method is proposed to solve the Fuzzy Linear Complementarity Problems (FLCP). Then we solve the Fuzzy Linear Complementarily Problem with Neutrosophic Triangular Fuzzy numbers. The effectiveness of the proposed methods is illustrated by means of a Numerical example. This problem finds many applications in several areas of science, engineering and economics and is also an important tool for the solution of some NP-hard structured and non convex optimization problems, such as bilevel, bilinear and non convex quadratic programs

Assessment of medical students’ attitude towards didactic lectures taken in pharmacology in a private medical college

Background: To assess the attitude of second year medical students towards the teaching Principles in Pharmacology didactic lecture classes.Methods: It was a descriptive epidemiological and questionnaire based study. Second year students who were attending pharmacology lecture classes for a period of one month (nearly 8 lectures) were given questionnaire and ask to fill it by assessing the theory classes which was conducted throughout that month. Each question was graded with mark and finally total score was converted to 50 marks. Five-level Likert’s criteria were used to analyze few questions in the questionnaire. Data were analyzed by frequency distribution.Results: Out of 115 students who attended the questionnaire session, 61% students were having a very good and better attitude towards the faculty talking Pharmacology lecture classes and remaining students have a few lacking areas in the teaching mode which should be analyzed.Conclusions: Students have good attitude towards the faculty taking didactic lectures and the lacking areas can be future improved by efficient planning of interactive and interesting lecture methods for the usefulness of students as well as the teacher

Zinc intake, status and indices of cognitive function in adults and children: a systematic review and meta-analysis

In developing countries, deficiencies of micronutrients are thought to have a major impact on child development; however, a consensus on the specific relationship between dietary zinc intake and cognitive function remains elusive. The aim of this systematic review was to examine the relationship between zinc intake, status and indices of cognitive function in children and adults. A systematic literature search was conducted using EMBASE, MEDLINE and Cochrane Library databases from inception to March 2014. Included studies were those that supplied zinc as supplements or measured dietary zinc intake. A meta-analysis of the extracted data was performed where sufficient data were available. Of all of the potentially relevant papers, 18 studies met the inclusion criteria, 12 of which were randomised controlled trials (RCTs; 11 in children and 1 in adults) and 6 were observational studies (2 in children and 4 in adults). Nine of the 18 studies reported a positive association between zinc intake or status with one or more measure of cognitive function. Meta-analysis of data from the adult’s studies was not possible because of limited number of studies. A meta-analysis of data from the six RCTs conducted in children revealed that there was no significant overall effect of zinc intake on any indices of cognitive function: intelligence, standard mean difference of <0.001 (95% confidence interval (CI) –0.12, 0.13) P=0.95; executive function, standard mean difference of 0.08 (95% CI, –0.06, 022) P=0.26; and motor skills standard mean difference of 0.11 (95% CI –0.17, 0.39) P=0.43. Heterogeneity in the study designs was a major limitation, hence only a small number (n=6) of studies could be included in the meta-analyses. Meta-analysis failed to show a significant effect of zinc supplementation on cognitive functioning in children though, taken as a whole, there were some small indicators of improvement on aspects of executive function and motor development following supplementation but high-quality RCTs are necessary to investigate this further