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Proteins have multiple roles
to play in all living organisms. `Gabs', which are proteins involved in cell
signaling, also play important roles in normal development and angiogenesis.
Rathnakumar and Madhulika Dixit in their article, "The Gabs in cell physiology",
have elaborated the multiple functions of these proteins in various biological
events like homing of hematopoietic cells from bone marrow, glucose transport,
oxidative stress, cardiac hypertrophy and atherosclerosis. Since these proteins
have positive roles to play in all these events, it is possible that they could
be used to reverse or reduce any damage that has occurred due to aberration
in these events. They could be exploited as targets for drug candidates to treat
oxidative stress-related pathology like atherosclerosis and even to modulate
the cell-signaling pathways where these Gabs are involved. Structure activity
related studies of these Gabs are likely to throw more light on etiology of
certain genetic diseases and may help in the development of sensitive and specific
markers to diagnose or detect genetic pre-disposition to certain inherited diseases.
A thorough understanding of development
of embryo will help in the management of inherited disorders and genetic defects.
Development of sensitive and specific diagnostic tests/tools, treatment of genetic
disorders and prevention/inheritance of genetic disorders depend on identification
and understanding of all changes that take place during an embryo development.
Traditionally, such changes have been studied using molecular tools, devices
and protocols which usually assume that changes in the expression of mRNA result
in up or down regulation of expression of relevant proteins. Such studies have
a limitation that they can only analyze one protein at a time. Therefore, a
technique which can analyze several proteins (samples) simultaneously will be
valuable and mass spectroscopy is one among them. The article, "Embryo
Proteomics: An Emerging Technology in Developmental Biology", by Mukesh
Kumar Gupta, Sang Jun Uhm and Hoon Taek Lee, reviews the principle and application
of mass spectroscopy. Such techniques not only analyze and give enormous information
from very small amounts of samples but also have become the standard for discovering
biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment. The article describes various types
of mass spectroscopy, their applications and also models available.
The advent of high throughput screening
platform has made drug screening very rapid and effective. Identification of
biomarkers, which double up as drug targets, have made such screening very specific.
Heat Shock Protein (HSP) is one such biomarker which has only been looked at
till recently as a marker whose levels are influenced by various environmental
factors. The attention of investigators is now turning to the HSPs as hot targets
for drug binding and action. They also act as good markers for monitoring disease
progressions/prognosis. The article, "Stress Response and Emerging Roles
of Heat Shock Proteins: Bench to Bedside", by Amere Subbarao Sreedhar,
is a timely reminder to the scientific community to turn its attention to these
groups of proteins, produced by all living organisms, in our quest for new drug
discovery.
Cytochrome oxidase plays a vital role
in the oxidation of metabolites and in the production of ATP through the respiratory
chain. Understanding the kinetics of binding of this important protein to its
substrates or inhibitors is important in our quest to modulate the functioning
of the respiratory chain to the advantage of the host organism. Cyanide is a
respiratory poison and it acts through inhibition of cytochrome oxidase. Simon
Brown in his article, "Estimating the Distribution of Forms of Cytochrome
Oxidase from the Kinetics of Cyanide Binding", takes us through the kinetics
of binding of cyanide to cytochrome oxidase with mathematical models to show
that any given preparation of this enzyme consists of two forms of the enzyme—`fast'
and `slow' forms of the enzyme—and demonstrates that the degree of heterogeneity
of the enzyme could be predicted reliably by the stretched exponential model.
Emerging infections and emergence of
resistance to several drugs that are used commonly to treat enteric infections
have mandated that new drugs have to be developed to manage these infections.
Medicinal plants offer an attractive alternative to synthetic drugs as resistance
develops very rarely to such drugs. Such drugs also have less side effects compared
to synthetic drugs and also are cheaper than synthetic drugs. They can be effective
even in semi purified form. There are two articles one describing the antibacterial
activity of a group of plants and another article reviewing the economically
important characteristics of a popular plant Pandanus amaryllifolius.
Pandanus amaryllifolius is a
herb with enormous valuable attributes like fragrance (aroma), high content
of alkaloids and hemagglutination and antiviral activity against HSV. The authors
A B Nadaf, K V Wakte, R J Thengane and N Jawali in their article, "Review
on Pandanus amaryllifolius Roxb.: The Plant with Rich Source of Principle
Basmati Aroma Compound 2 Acetyl-1-Pyrroline", also describe a micropropagation
protocol and suggest that this plant has high economic potential and needs to
be, though not native to India, commercially exploited in India. Particular
mention has been made about a compound called 2 Acetyl-1-Pyrroline which confers
the flavor to basmati rice and this compound has very high commercial value
for adding fragrance to different rice varieties.
The quality and cost of natural products
will depend largely on the extraction and purification protocols. The article,
"Antibacterial Activity of Three Medicinal Plants: Eucalyptus globulus,
Aristolochial latas and Vitex negundo Against Enteric Pathogens",
by R Anand, C Sundaramorthi, S Saritha and K Bhuvaneswari, describes a simple
solvent extraction protocol to isolate an (ethanolic) extract which shows a
significant antibacterial activity against several enteric pathogens.
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V Sritharan
Consulting
Editor |
