A compilation of Bioactive Compounds from Ayurveda

This review deals with the key bioactive compounds and the role of medicinal plants in Ayurvedic systems of medicine in India and their earlier investigation. There has been an increase in demand for the Phytopharmaceutical products of Ayurvĕda in Western countries, because of the fact that the allopathic drugs have more side effects. Many pharmaceutical companies are now concentrating on manufacturing of Ayurvĕdic Phytopharmaceutical products. Ayurvĕda is the Indian traditional system of medicine, which also deals about pharmaceutical science. Different type of plant parts used for the Ayurvedic formulation; overall out line of those herbal scenario and its future prospects for the scientific evaluation of medicinal plants used by traditional healers are also discussed. In India most of them, where Ayurvedic treatment is frequently used, for their ailments and provides instructions to local people how to prepare medicine from the herbs. As much as possible importance is also given for the taxonomic literature.     

A novel combination of two classic catalytic schemes

The crystal structure of an alkaline Bacillus cellulase catalytic core, from glucoside hydrolase family 5, reveals a novel combination of the catalytic machinery of two classic textbook enzymes. The enzyme has the expected two glutamate residues in close proximity to one another in the active-site that are typical of retaining cellulases. However, the proton donor, glutamate 139 is also unexpectedly a member of a serine-histidine-glutamate catalytic triad, forming a novel combination of catalytic machineries. Structure and sequence analysis of glucoside hydrolase family 5 reveal that the triad is highly conserved, but with variations at the equivalent of the serine position. We speculate that the purpose of this novel catalytic triad is to control the protonation of the acid/base glutamate, facilitating the first step of the catalytic reaction, protonation of the substrate, by the proton donor glutamate. If correct, this will be a novel use for a catalytic triad.     

A compilation of soybean ESTs: generation and analysis.

Whole-genome sequencing is fundamental to understanding the genetic composition of an organism. Given the size and complexity of the soybean genome, an alternative approach is targeted random-gene sequencing, which provides an immediate and productive method of gene discovery. In this study, more than 120000 soybean expressed sequence tags (ESTs) generated from more than 50 cDNA libraries were evaluated. These ESTs coalesced into 16928 contigs and 17336 singletons. On average, each contig was composed of 6 ESTs and spanned 788 bases. The average sequence length submitted to dbEST was 414 bases. Using only those libraries generating more than 800 ESTs each and only those contigs with 10 or more ESTs each, correlated patterns of gene expression among libraries and genes were discerned. Two-dimensional qualitative representations of contig and library similarities were generated based on expression profiles. Genes with similar expression patterns and, potentially, similar functions were identified. These studies provide a rich source of publicly available gene sequences as well as valuable insight into the structure, function, and evolution of a model crop legume genome.     

A reappraisal of Bateman's classic study of intrasexual selection

Bateman's (1948) study showing greater variances in number of mates and reproductive success in male than female Drosophila melanogaster is a foundational paper in sexual selection. Here we show for the first time that his methods had flaws, including the elimination of genetic variance, sampling biases, miscalculations of fitness variances, statistical pseudo-replication, and selective presentation of data. We conclude that Bateman's results are unreliable, his conclusions are questionable, and his observed variances are similar to those expected under random mating. Despite our analysis, we do not intend this article as a criticism of Bateman; he accomplished his work without modern computational tools, and his approach was groundbreaking emphasizing the significance of fitness variance for sexual selection. However, this reanalysis has implications for what counts as evidence for sexual selection and we believe that our concerns should be of interest to contemporary students of sexual selection. We call for repetitions of Bateman's study using modern statistical and molecular methods.     

A FastA based compilation of higher plant mitochondrial tRNA genes.

A new version of the compilation of higher plant mitochondrial tRNA genes (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/service ) has been obtained by means of the FastA program for similarity searching in nucleotide sequence Databases. This approach improves the previous collection, which was based on literature data analysis. The current compilation contains 158 sequences with an increase of 43 units. In this paper, some interesting features of the new entries are briefly presented.     

A compilation of published reports of mycoses in animals in India

The available published reports on animal mycoses in India and the fungal agents isolated from animal material are discussed.Among dermatophytes, the occurrence of Trichophyton verrucosum, T. mentagrophytes, T. rubrum, T. equinum, T. violaceum, T. simii, T. tonsurans, T. terrestre, T. ajelloi, Microsporum canis, M. gypseum and M. nanum has been reported. Cases of aspergillosis, candidiasis, phycomycosis, rhinosporidiosis, epizootic lymphangitis, mycotic abortions and mycotic mastitis have been recorded in animals in this country. However, there is no report of histoplasmosis, sporotrichosis, blastomycosis and coccidioidomycosis among animals from India.     

An exhaustive compilation on chemistry of triazolopyrimidine: A journey through decades

The triazolopyrimidine scaffold represents one of the privileged structure in chemistry, and there has been an increase in number of studies utilizing this scaffold and its derivatives. Optimization of synthetic protocols such as aza-Wittig reaction, [3 + 2] cycloaddition reaction along with previous methods including condensation with 1,3-dicarbonyl substrates and oxidation of aminopyrimidine Schiff bases have been performed to obtain desired triazolopyrimidines. The triazolopyrimidine ring has been extensively used as a template in medicinal chemistry for its diverse pharmacological properties. Several medicinally active molecules possessing triazolopyrimidine scaffold, either fused or coupled with other heterocycles, have been reported in the literature, highlighting the significance of this nucleus. Interestingly, the unique triazolopyrimidine scaffold also exhibits an impressive potential as a ligand for the synthesis of several metal complexes with significant biological potential. Literature provides enough evidence of exhaustive exploration of this scaffold as a ligand for the chelates of platinum, ruthenium and other metals. This review aims to be a comprehensive and general summary of the different triazolopyrimidine syntheses, their use as ligands for the synthesis and development of metal complexes as medicinal agents and their main biological activities.     

On flower design: a compilation

Hermaphrodite plants represent approximately 96% of the flowering species. Antirrhinum, Arabidopsis, Sinapsis or Pisum are model experimental systems in desciphering floral development. Classical and modern studies are reviewed, and a compilation of proposed models on flower pattern formation presented to suggest that such models, while explaining rather accurately the specification of floral organ fate (identity), are yet too simple to account for additional events involved in pattern establishment, cell type determination etc. or molecular patterns of expression of available cloned genes.     

Mycobacterial protein antigens: a compilation

In response to recommendations from the Steering Committees responsible for co-ordination of World Health Organization programmes for research on the immunology of leprosy (IMMLEP) and tuberculosis (IMMTUB), a list was prepared summarizing the properties of mycobacterial proteins currently under investigation with respect to their immunological activities. After consultation with more than 40 laboratories world-wide this list was extended to form the compilation shown below and is intended to provide a comprehensive and convenient reference for future studies in this field.