Opioid Peptides: An Overview of Functional Significance

International Journal of Peptide Research and Therapeutics - Bioactive peptides have been reported to exhibit opioid-like activity and are termed as opioid peptides. Either these are produced...     

Molecular profiling in relation to drought tolerance in advance breeding lines of rice using microsatellite markers

Using agro-morphological characters and microsatellite markers, advance breeding lines of rice were discriminated for their ability to tolerate drought stress at reproductive stage. Experimental materials consisting of 17 advance breeding lines and a check were evaluated in randomized block design with three replications under irrigated condition and drought condition created under rainout shelter during three consecutive years. An analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the genotypes for all the ten agro-morphological characters evaluated under both the conditions across the years. Principal component analysis showed the relative importance of root length, number of tillers per plant, number of grains per panicle, harvest index and grain yield per plant among agro-morphological characters and stress tolerance level, stress susceptibility index, stress tolerance index and drought tolerance efficiency among drought tolerance indices as the important classification variables. Relative mean performance in respect of grain yield as well as drought tolerance indices reflected remarkably greater degree of drought tolerance in 11 advance breeding lines and the check, discriminating them from remaining entries under evaluation. Utilizing a panel of 32 microsatellite primers, selective amplification of targeted genomic regions revealed that the primers RM 72, RM 163, RM 212, RM 225, RM 231, RM 302, RM 327, RM 518, RM 521, RM 555, RM 1349, RM 3549 and RM 5443 were highly informative with greater gene diversity and discrimination ability. Hierarchical cluster analysis based on molecular profiles discriminated the entries into five genotypic groups and drought tolerant entries were accommodated into three distinct groups with remarkably greater efficiency (85.7%). Principal coordinate analysis based two dimensional plots of microsatellites dependent genetic profiles displayed a very close correspondence with the genotypic clustering pattern revealed from a perusal of dendrogram. Sequential exclusion of primers in cluster analysis led to identification of RM 212, RM 231, RM 324, RM 431, RM 521, RM 3549 and RM 6374 as the most useful primers for discrimination of drought tolerant and susceptible lines of rice. Molecular profiling based on these markers can be utilized as efficient tools for discrimination and identification of drought tolerant lines.

     

SARS-CoV-2 cell receptor gene ACE2 -mediated immunomodulation in breast cancer subtypes

The recent outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has impacted the world severely. The binding of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and its intake by the host cell is a necessary step for infection. ACE2 has garnered widespread therapeutic possibility as it is entry/interactive point for SARS-CoV-2, responsible for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and providing a critical regulator for immune modulation in various disease. Patients with suffering from cancer always being on the verge of being immune compromised therefore gaining knowledge about how SARS-CoV-2 viruses affecting immune cells in human cancers will provides us new opportunities for preventing or treating virus-associated cancers. Despite COVID-19 pandemic got center stage at present time, however very little research being explores, which increase our knowledge in context with how SARS-CoV-2 infection affect cancer a cellular level. Therefore, in light of the ACE-2 as an important contributor of COVID-19 global, we analyzed correlation between ACE2 and tumor immune infiltration (TIL) level and the type markers of immune cells were investigated in breast cancer subtypes by using TIMER database. Our findings shed light on the immunomodulatory role of ACE2 in the luminal A subtype which may play crucial role in imparting therapeutic resistance in this cancer subtype.     

Structural evolution and function of stress associated proteins in regulating biotic and abiotic stress responses in plants

Adverse environmental conditions greatly influence crop production every year and threaten food security. Plants have a range of signaling networks to combat these stresses, in which several stress-responsive genes and regulatory proteins function together. One such important family of proteins, the Stress Associated Protein (SAP) family, has been identified as a novel regulator of multiple stresses. The SAPs possess a characteristic N-terminal A20 zinc-finger domain combined with either AN1 or C₂H₂ at the C-terminus. SAPs provide tolerance against various abiotic stresses, including cold, salt, drought, heavy metal, and wounding. The majority of SAPs are stress-inducible and have a function in conferring stress tolerance in transgenics. The role of SAPs in regulating biotic stress responses is a newly emerging field among researchers. SAPs interact with many other proteins to execute their functions; however, the detailed mechanism of these interactions needs to be elucidated. In this context, the present review provides a detailed view of the evolution and functions of SAPs in plants. The involvement in crosstalk between abiotic and biotic stress signaling pathways makes SAPs ideal targets to develop crops with tolerance against multiple stresses without any yield penalty. Altogether, we provide current knowledge on SAPs for investigating their role in stress response, which can further be exploited to develop climate-resilient crops through transgene-based, breeding-mediated, or genome-editing approaches.

     

Sterol and oxysterol synthases near the ciliary base activate the Hedgehog pathway

Vertebrate Hedgehog signals are transduced through the primary cilium, a specialized lipid microdomain that is required for Smoothened activation. Cilia-associated sterol and oxysterol lipids bind to Smoothened to activate the Hedgehog pathway, but how ciliary lipids are regulated is incompletely understood. Here we identified DHCR7, an enzyme that produces cholesterol, activates the Hedgehog pathway, and localizes near the ciliary base. We found that Hedgehog stimulation negatively regulates DHCR7 activity and removes DHCR7 from the ciliary microenvironment, suggesting that DHCR7 primes cilia for Hedgehog pathway activation. In contrast, we found that Hedgehog stimulation positively regulates the oxysterol synthase CYP7A1, which accumulates near the ciliary base and produces oxysterols that promote Hedgehog signaling in response to pathway activation. Our results reveal that enzymes involved in lipid biosynthesis in the ciliary microenvironment promote Hedgehog signaling, shedding light on how ciliary lipids are established and regulated to transduce Hedgehog signals.     

Scope of Archaea in Fish Feed: a New Chapter in Aquafeed Probiotics?

Probiotics and Antimicrobial Proteins - The outbreak of diseases leading to substantial loss is a major bottleneck in aquaculture. Over the last decades, the concept of using feed probiotics was...     

In-Silico Proteomic Exploratory Quest: Crafting T-Cell Epitope Vaccine Against Whipple’s Disease

International Journal of Peptide Research and Therapeutics - Whipple’s disease is one of the rare maladies in terms of spread but very fatal one as it is linked with many disorders (like...     

Identification and characterization of candidates involved in production of OMEGAs in microalgae: a gene mining and phylogenomic approach

Abstract

Optimizing the production of the high-value renewables such as OMEGAs through pathway engineering requires an in-depth understanding of the structure–function relationship of genes involved in the OMEGA biosynthetic pathways. In this preliminary study, our rationale is to identify and characterize the ～221 putative genes involved in production of OMEGAs using bioinformatic analysis from the Streptophyte (plants), Chlorophyte (green algae), Rhodophyta (red algae), and Bacillariophyta (diatoms) lineages based on their phylogenomic profiling, conserved motif/domain organization and physico-chemical properties. The MEME suite predicted 12 distinct protein domains, which are conserved among these putative genes. The phylogenomic analysis of the putative candidate genes [such as FAD2 (delta-12 desaturase); ECR (enoyl-CoA reductase); FAD2 (delta-12 desaturase); ACOT (acyl CoA thioesterase); ECH (enoyl-CoA hydratase); and ACAT (acetyl-CoA acyltransferase)] with similar domains and motif patterns were remarkably well conserved. Furthermore, the subcellular network prediction of OMEGA biosynthetic pathway genes revealed a unique interaction between the light-dependent chlorophyll biosynthesis and glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, which predicts a major cross-talk between the key essential pathways. Such bioinformatic analysis will provide insights in finding the key regulatory genes to optimize the productivity of OMEGAs in microalgal cell factories.