Defence Life Science Journal
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Human Pluripotent Stem Cells and Drug Discovery: A New Beginning
Get PDFHuman pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) offer unique opportunities to discover and develop a new generation of drugs. Their ability to differentiate into virtually any cell type renders them a cost-effective, renewable source of tissue-specific cell types capable of predicting human responses towards novel chemical entities. Using these improved in vitro models based on physiologically relevant human cell types could result in identifying highly precise and safe compounds, thereby reducing drug attrition rates. Moreover, ability to develop humanised disease models for patient-stratified drug screening makes hPSCs an impeccable tool in translational medicine. In this mini-review we focus on the positives and negatives of utilising hPSC-derived cell types as drug discovery platforms with special emphasis on cardio-, hepato- and embryotoxicity
Diversification of the Histone Fold Motif in Plants: Evolution of New Functional Roles
Get PDFThe Histone fold motif (HFM) is one of the most conserved structural motifs in biology, mainly found in the core histone sub-units of all eukaryotes. The HFM represents a helix-strand-helix motif having three alpha helices connected by two loops/beta strands. This helix-strand-helix motif has the unique property of binding strongly with proteins as well as with DNA. Apart from core histones, the HFM has been reported in a variety of other proteins in all forms of life. In this work, we review the various classes of proteins that contain the HFM, as well as the diverse roles played by these proteins in the plant kingdom. As will be clear from this review, formation of the core histones through multi-merisation is not the only role played by this conserved fold, although the characteristic ability of the HFM to dimerize with suitable partner proteins has been used by nature to perform several non-core-histone functions. Most of the information about plant HFM containing proteins, such as identification and classification, has been done based on homology with yeast and animal counterparts. However, the ability of plants genomes to duplicate extensively has led to the existence of large gene families of the HFM containing proteins, unlike other eukaryotes. Plant HFM containing proteins can broadly be classified under the following major categories; TBP-associated factors (TAF), Nuclear Factor Y (NF-Y), Dr1/DrAp1 proteins and the chromatin accessibility complex (CHRAC). These proteins families are known to be involved in transcriptional regulation, co-activation and chromosome maintenance. Partner recognition through dimer formation remains a major conserved feature of these groups when compared with core histone sub-units
Emerging Technologies in the Area of Defence Life Sciences
Get PDFIn the modern era world has experienced tremendous boost in the field of science and technology, realising its impact on the economic growth and people’s standard of living. India has also maintained its pace in the field of Science and technology. We are among the world’s top 10 nations in the number of scientific publications and patents. The government has made considerable investmentand encouraged public-private partnership to achieve self reliance in different sectors such as space, nuclear power, defence, agriculture, and healthcare. Although, India’s footprint in the life sciences is relatively small, it has taken giant strides to catch up with the rising economic wave to reckon itself as an international player in the life sciences. It has a strong presence in the field biotechnology, particularly related to agriculture, pharmaceuticals, health care, diagnostics, etc. A testimony to this is the accessibility of cutting edge technologies in the market
Effect of Detoxified Jatropha Cake on Hepatic and Renal Function following Long Term Feeding to Mice
No full textJatropha curcas belongs to the family Euphorbiaceae and is distributed in many tropical and subtropical countries. The toxicity of the whole seed Jatropha curcas has been known for a long time. Jatropha plant is used as a source of biodiesel. In addition to being a source of oil, Jatropha also provides seed-cake and is a by-product of oil extraction that serves as a highly nutritious and economic protein supplement in animal feed. It also contains many toxic components like phorbol ester, lectins, saponin, curcin, HCN etc. In the present study, we detoxified whole Jatropha cake by subjecting to various solvent extraction, alkali and heat treatment. After processing, cake was dried and animal baits were prepared by mixing different percentage of detoxified (JCMD) and non detoxified cake (JCM). Long term (90 days) animal feeding trials and toxicological evaluations was carried out. Animals were sacrificed at various time intervals for toxicity evaluation. The toxicity study result revealed that 10% (w/w) detoxified (JCMD) baits fed group animals survived till the 90 days and did not show any significant changes in various clinical parameters related to hepatic and renal function while in 10% non detoxified (JCM) fed groups mortality starts on 6th day of feeding and no animal was survived beyond 9th day. The result of long term feeding trials and toxicity study reveals that 10% detoxified Jatropha cake can be supplemented in animal’s diet after detoxification