scholarly journals Isolation of antimicrobial peptides from different plant sources: Does a general extraction method exist?

Plant Methods ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna S. Barashkova ◽  
Eugene A. Rogozhin

Abstract Plants are good sources of biologically active compounds with antimicrobial activity, including polypeptides. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) represent one of the main barriers of plant innate immunity to environmental stress factors and are attracting much research interest. There are some extraction methods for isolation of AMPs from plant organs based on the type of extractant and initial fractionation stages. But most methods are directed to obtain some specific structural types of AMPs and do not allow to understand the molecular diversity of AMP inside a whole plant. In this mini-review, we suggest an optimized scheme of AMP isolation from plants followed by obtaining a set of peptides belonging to various structural families. This approach can be performed for large-scale screening of plants to identify some novel or homologous AMPs for fundamental and applied studies.

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (17) ◽  
pp. 1999-2018
Author(s):  
Vitor F. Ferreira ◽  
Thais de B. da Silva ◽  
Fernanda P. Pauli ◽  
Patricia G. Ferreira ◽  
Luana da S. M. Forezi ◽  
...  

Molecular rearrangements are important tools to increase the molecular diversity of new bioactive compounds, especially in the class of heterocycles. This review deals specifically with a very famous and widely applicable rearrangement known as the Dimroth Rearrangement. Although it has originally been observed for 1,2,3-triazoles, its amplitude was greatly expanded to other heterocycles, as well as from laboratory to large scale production of drugs and intermediates. The reactions that were discussed in this review were selected with the aim of demonstrating the windows that may be open by the Dimroth's rearrangement, especially in what regards the development of new synthetic approaches toward biologically active compounds.


1976 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 236-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisue Pickering ◽  
William R. Dopheide

This report deals with an effort to begin the process of effectively identifying children in rural areas with speech and language problems using existing school personnel. A two-day competency-based workshop for the purpose of training aides to conduct a large-scale screening of speech and language problems in elementary-school-age children is described. Training strategies, implementation, and evaluation procedures are discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qihui Wu ◽  
Hanzhong Ke ◽  
Dongli Li ◽  
Qi Wang ◽  
Jiansong Fang ◽  
...  

Over the past decades, peptide as a therapeutic candidate has received increasing attention in drug discovery, especially for antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), anticancer peptides (ACPs) and antiinflammatory peptides (AIPs). It is considered that the peptides can regulate various complex diseases which are previously untouchable. In recent years, the critical problem of antimicrobial resistance drives the pharmaceutical industry to look for new therapeutic agents. Compared to organic small drugs, peptide- based therapy exhibits high specificity and minimal toxicity. Thus, peptides are widely recruited in the design and discovery of new potent drugs. Currently, large-scale screening of peptide activity with traditional approaches is costly, time-consuming and labor-intensive. Hence, in silico methods, mainly machine learning approaches, for their accuracy and effectiveness, have been introduced to predict the peptide activity. In this review, we document the recent progress in machine learning-based prediction of peptides which will be of great benefit to the discovery of potential active AMPs, ACPs and AIPs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asma S. Algebaly ◽  
Afrah E. Mohammed ◽  
Mudawi M. Elobeid

Introduction: Fabrication of iron nanoparticles (FeNPs) has recently gained a great concern for their varied applications in remediation technologies of the environment. Objective: The current study aimed to fabricate iron nanoparticles by green technology approach using different plant sources, Azadirachta indica leaf and Calligonum comosum root following two extraction methods. Methods: Currently, a mixture of FeCl2 and FeCl3 was used to react with the plant extracts which are considered as reducing and stabilizing agents for the generation of FeNPs in one step. Different techniques were used for FeNPs identification. Results: Immediately after mixing of the two reaction components, the color changed to dark brown as an indication of safe conversion of Fe ions to FeNPs, that later confirmed by zeta sizer, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). FeNPs fabricated by C. comosum showed smaller size when compared by those fabricated by A. indica. Using both plant sources, FeNPs fabricated by the aqueous extract had smaller size in relation to those fabricated by ethanolic extract. Furthermore, antibacterial ability against two bacterial strains was approved. Conclusion: The current results indicated that, at room temperature plant extracts fabricated Fe ion to Fe nanoparticles, suggesting its probable usage for large scale production as well as its suitability against bacteria. It could also be recommended for antibiotic resistant bacteria.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (04) ◽  
pp. 5343
Author(s):  
Ragni Vora ◽  
Ambika N. Joshi* ◽  
Nitesh C. Joshi

Mucuna pruriens seeds are noted to be a natural source of L-DOPA and are also used as a substitute for the synthetic L-DOPA. In the present study; attempts are made to develop suitable method(s) for extraction of L-DOPA from the powdered seeds of Mucuna pruriens using different solvents and conditions. The Seed powder was subjected to 7 different extraction methods and Method 1 was subjected to various solvent concentrations. Some methods used de-fatting procedure, either the method was cold maceration or in high temperature. Soxhlet extraction was also used in one of the extraction methods. All the extracts were analyzed using RP-HPLC. Mobile Phase used was Water: Methanol: AcetoNitrile (100:60:40) (v/v) containing 0.2% Triethylamine, pH = 3.3 and monitored at 280 nm with variable wavelength UV detector. The extraction was best with Methanol Water mixture in a cold maceration technique and overall gives good extraction efficiency of 13.36 % L-DOPA and id the best method giving highest extraction efficiency. The De-fatting method was the 2nd best methods giving approximately 8.8% L-DOPA and Method 5 viz, heat reflux method gives 8.7% L-DOPA making it the 3rd best method. There are not many studies done for optimization of extraction technique for L-DOPA despite an extensive work is reported for isolation, identification and pharmacological activities of L-DOPA from various plant sources. Keeping this in view, present investigation was done to study the extraction efficiency of various extraction methods of L-DOPA content in seed extracts of Mucuna pruriens and compare it.


Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 820
Author(s):  
Clara Azzam ◽  
Sudad Al-Taweel ◽  
Ranya Abdel-Aziz ◽  
Karim Rabea ◽  
Alaa Abou-Sreea ◽  
...  

Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni is a little bush, which is cultivated on a large scale in many countries for medicinal purposes and used as a natural sweetener in food products. The present work aims to conduct a protocol for stevia propagation in vitro to produce and introduce Stevia rebaudiana plants as a new sweetener crop to Egyptian agriculture. To efficiently maximize its propagation, it is important to study the influence of stress factors on the growth and development of Stevia rebaudiana grown in vitro. Two stevia varieties were investigated (Sugar High A3 and Spanti) against salt stress. Leaves were used as the source of explants for callus initiation, regeneration, multiplication and rooting. Some stress-related traits, i.e., photosynthetic pigments, proline contents, and enzyme activity for peroxidase (POD), polyphenol oxidase (PPO), and malate dehydrogenase (MDH) were studied. Murashig and Skoog (MS) medium was supplemented with four NaCl concentrations: 500, 1000, 2000, and 3000 mgL−1, while a salt-free medium was used as the control. The data revealed that salinity negatively affected all studied characters: the number of surviving calli, regeneration%, shoot length, the number of multiple shoots, number of leaf plantlets−1, number of root plantlets−1, and root length. The data also revealed that Sugar High A3 is more tolerant than Spanti. The total chlorophyll content decreased gradually with increasing NaCl concentration. However, the opposite was true for proline content. Isozyme’s fractionation exhibited high levels of variability among the two varieties. Various biochemical parameters associated with salt tolerance were detected in POD. Namely, POD4, POD6, POD 9 at an Rf of 0.34, 0.57, and 0.91 in the Sugar High A3 variety under high salt concentration conditions, as well as POD 10 at an Rf of 0.98 in both varieties under high salt concentrations. In addition, the overexpression of POD 5 and POD 10 at Rf 0.52 and 0.83 was found in both varieties at high NaCl concentrations. Biochemical parameters associated with salt tolerance were detected in PPO (PPO1, PPO2 and PPO4 at an Rf of 0.38, 0.42 and 0.62 in the Sugar High A3 variety under high salt concentrations) and MDH (MDH 3 at an Rf of 0.40 in both varieties at high salt concentrations). Therefore, these could be considered as important biochemical markers associated with salt tolerance and could be applied in stevia breeding programs (marker-assisted selection). This investigation recommends stevia variety Sugar High A3 to be cultivated under salt conditions.


Diagnostics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 869
Author(s):  
Amedeo De Nicolò ◽  
Valeria Avataneo ◽  
Jessica Cusato ◽  
Alice Palermiti ◽  
Jacopo Mula ◽  
...  

Recently, large-scale screening for COVID-19 has presented a major challenge, limiting timely countermeasures. Therefore, the application of suitable rapid serological tests could provide useful information, however, little evidence regarding their robustness is currently available. In this work, we evaluated and compared the analytical performance of a rapid lateral-flow test (LFA) and a fast semiquantitative fluorescent immunoassay (FIA) for anti-nucleocapsid (anti-NC) antibodies, with the reverse transcriptase real-time PCR assay as the reference. In 222 patients, LFA showed poor sensitivity (55.9%) within two weeks from PCR, while later testing was more reliable (sensitivity of 85.7% and specificity of 93.1%). Moreover, in a subset of 100 patients, FIA showed high sensitivity (89.1%) and specificity (94.1%) after two weeks from PCR. The coupled application for the screening of 183 patients showed satisfactory concordance (K = 0.858). In conclusion, rapid serological tests were largely not useful for early diagnosis, but they showed good performance in later stages of infection. These could be useful for back-tracing and/or to identify potentially immune subjects.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anik Dutta ◽  
Fanny E. Hartmann ◽  
Carolina Sardinha Francisco ◽  
Bruce A. McDonald ◽  
Daniel Croll

AbstractThe adaptive potential of pathogens in novel or heterogeneous environments underpins the risk of disease epidemics. Antagonistic pleiotropy or differential resource allocation among life-history traits can constrain pathogen adaptation. However, we lack understanding of how the genetic architecture of individual traits can generate trade-offs. Here, we report a large-scale study based on 145 global strains of the fungal wheat pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici from four continents. We measured 50 life-history traits, including virulence and reproduction on 12 different wheat hosts and growth responses to several abiotic stressors. To elucidate the genetic basis of adaptation, we used genome-wide association mapping coupled with genetic correlation analyses. We show that most traits are governed by polygenic architectures and are highly heritable suggesting that adaptation proceeds mainly through allele frequency shifts at many loci. We identified negative genetic correlations among traits related to host colonization and survival in stressful environments. Such genetic constraints indicate that pleiotropic effects could limit the pathogen’s ability to cause host damage. In contrast, adaptation to abiotic stress factors was likely facilitated by synergistic pleiotropy. Our study illustrates how comprehensive mapping of life-history trait architectures across diverse environments allows to predict evolutionary trajectories of pathogens confronted with environmental perturbations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (15) ◽  
pp. 7773
Author(s):  
Neann Mathai ◽  
Conrad Stork ◽  
Johannes Kirchmair

Experimental screening of large sets of compounds against macromolecular targets is a key strategy to identify novel bioactivities. However, large-scale screening requires substantial experimental resources and is time-consuming and challenging. Therefore, small to medium-sized compound libraries with a high chance of producing genuine hits on an arbitrary protein of interest would be of great value to fields related to early drug discovery, in particular biochemical and cell research. Here, we present a computational approach that incorporates drug-likeness, predicted bioactivities, biological space coverage, and target novelty, to generate optimized compound libraries with maximized chances of producing genuine hits for a wide range of proteins. The computational approach evaluates drug-likeness with a set of established rules, predicts bioactivities with a validated, similarity-based approach, and optimizes the composition of small sets of compounds towards maximum target coverage and novelty. We found that, in comparison to the random selection of compounds for a library, our approach generates substantially improved compound sets. Quantified as the “fitness” of compound libraries, the calculated improvements ranged from +60% (for a library of 15,000 compounds) to +184% (for a library of 1000 compounds). The best of the optimized compound libraries prepared in this work are available for download as a dataset bundle (“BonMOLière”).


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