1,720,970 research outputs found
In Silico Evaluation of the Potential of Natural Products From Chili Pepper as Antiviral Agents Against DNA-Directed RNA Polymerase of the Monkeypox Virus
No full textThis study focused on the discovery of new drug candidates effective against the monkeypox virus. Virtual screening was performed to evaluate the potential of chili pepper natural products against homology-modeled DNA-directed RNA polymerase of the monkeypox virus using molecular docking. Our findings revealed that structurally similar triterpenes such as α-amyrin, β-amyrin, and β-sitosterol had strong binding affinities towards the DNA-directed RNA polymerase and can inhibit this pivotal viral enzyme. The stability of one of the drug candidate molecules, α-amyrin with the strongest binding affinity towards the binding cavity of the enzyme was also confirmed via molecular dynamics simulation. This study showed that α-amyrin is a promising DNA-directed RNA polymerase inhibitor to treat monkeypox disease. It also paves the way for the idea of the potential dietary supplement candidate for monkeypox patients
In silico evaluation of food‐derived carotenoids against SARS‐CoV‐2 drug targets: Crocin is a promising dietary supplement candidate for COVID‐19
No full textThe current COVID‐19 pandemic is severely threatening public healthcare systems around the globe. Some supporting therapies such as remdesivir, favipiravir, and ivermectin are still under the process of a clinical trial, it is thus urgent to find alternative treatment and prevention options for SARS‐CoV‐2. In this regard, although many natural products have been tested and/or suggested for the treatment and prophylaxis of COVID‐19, carotenoids as an important class of natural products were underexplored. The dietary supplementation of some carotenoids was already suggested to be potentially effective in the treatment of COVID‐19 due to their strong antioxidant properties. In this study, we performed an in silico screening of common food‐derived carotenoids against druggable target proteins of SARS‐CoV‐2 including main protease, helicase, replication complex, spike protein and its mutants for the recent variants of concern, and ADP‐ribose phosphatase. Molecular docking results revealed that some of the carotenoids had low binding energies toward multiple receptors. Particularly, crocin had the strongest binding affinity (−10.5 kcal/mol) toward the replication complex of SARS‐CoV‐2 and indeed possessed quite low binding energy scores for other targets as well. The stability of crocin in the corresponding receptors was confirmed by molecular dynamics simulations. Our study, therefore, suggests that carotenoids, especially crocin, can be considered an effective alternative therapeutics and a dietary supplement candidate for the prophylaxis and treatment of SARS‐CoV‐2. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: In this study, food‐derived carotenoids as dietary supplements have the potential to be used for the prophylaxis and/or treatment of SARS‐CoV‐2. Using in silico techniques, we aimed at discovering food‐derived carotenoids with inhibitory effects against multiple druggable sites of SARS‐CoV‐2. Molecular docking experiments against main protease, helicase, replication complex, spike protein and its mutants for the recent variants of concern, and ADP‐ribose phosphatase resulted in a few carotenoids with multitarget inhibitory effects. Particularly, crocin as one of the main components of saffron exhibited strong binding affinities to the multiple drug targets including main protease, helicase, replication complex, mutant spike protein of lineage B.1.351, and ADP‐ribose phosphatase. The stability of the crocin complexed with these drug targets was further confirmed through molecular dynamics simulations. Overall, our study provides the preliminary data for the potential use of food‐derived carotenoids, particularly crocin, as dietary supplements in the prevention and treatment of COVID‐19
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
INSILICO ANALYSIS OF DIETARY AGENTS AS ANTICANCER INHIBITORS OF INSULIN LIKE GROWTH FACTOR 1 RECEPTOR (IGF1R)
Get PDFObjective: Insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF-1R) is over-expressed in a number of cancer cell lines and has been implicated to play a role in oncogenesis and suppression of apoptosis. Thus, the inhibition of IGF-1R activity leads to tumor regression and renders IGF-1R a plausible target for the development of anti-cancer drugs. Dietary agents are known to interfere with IGF signaling and offer a foundation for developing nontoxic agents that override any toxicity associated with synthetic IGF inhibitors. This study is designed to obtain structural motifs and active residues that preferentially interact with IGF1Rand to identify the phytochemicals from different plants and act as potential anticancer drug leadsMethods: Thus, six dietary agents known to interfere directly with circulating levels of IGF1R were undertaken for docking studies. A molecular docking simulation model of IGF1R with its bound ligand was established and validated to be used as a reference model for the study.Results: The active site residuesGLU1080, MET 1082, GLU1081, GLU1027, GLU1145 and ARG1003 were found to play a significant role in binding mechanism. The ADME properties and drug likeliness of the ligands were rigorously analyzed under four criteria of known successful drug activity in the areas of GPCR ligand activity, ion channel modulation, kinase inhibition activity, nuclear receptor ligand activity and enzyme inhibition. The dietary agents Apigenin and Luteolin demonstrated reliable interaction with IGF1R (-5.78Kcal/mol and-5.70 Kcal/mol respectively)and displayed good pharmacokinetics properties.Conclusion: It is concluded that the explored dietary agents offer profound promise to be used natural inhibitors of IGF1R and thus may be useful for the preparation of different combinations and formulations for the management of tumors.Â
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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