Molecular docking analysis of HER-2 inhibitor from the ZINC database as anticancer agents

The human epidermal growth factor (HER2) is a transmembrane receptor that is highly expressed in breast cancer and in different other cancers. Therefore, it is of interest to identify the new HER2 inhibitors from a selected 300 compounds in the ZINC database. The top two hit compounds (ZINC000014780728 (-11.0 kcal/mol) and ZINC000014762512 (-10.8 kcal/mol)) showed a high affinity with HER2 relative to the reference compound (lapatinib (-10.2 kcal/mol)) for further consideration.     

Novel Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) and Other Coronaviruses: A Genome-wide Comparative Annotation and Analysis

Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry - Novel strain of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) causes mild to severe respiratory illness. The early symptoms may be fever, dry...     

Candida identification: a journey from conventional to molecular methods in medical mycology

The incidence of Candida infections have increased substantially in recent years due to aggressive use of immunosuppressants among patients. Use of broad-spectrum antibiotics and intravascular catheters in the intensive care unit have also attributed with high risks of candidiasis among immunocompromised patients. Among Candida species, C. albicans accounts for the majority of superficial and systemic infections, usually associated with high morbidity and mortality often caused due to increase in antimicrobial resistance and restricted number of antifungal drugs. Therefore, early detection of candidemia and correct identification of Candida species are indispensable pre-requisites for appropriate therapeutic intervention. Since blood culture based methods lack sensitivity, and species-specific identification by conventional method is time-consuming and often leads to misdiagnosis within closely related species, hence, molecular methods may provide alternative for accurate and rapid identification of Candida species. Although, several molecular approaches have been developed for accurate identification of Candida species but the internal transcribed spacer 1 and 2 (ITS1 and ITS2) regions of the rRNA gene are being used extensively in a variety of formats. Of note, ITS sequencing and PCR–RFLP analysis of ITS region seems to be promising as a rapid, easy, and cost-effective method for identification of Candida species. Here, we review a number of existing techniques ranging from conventional to molecular approaches currently in use for the identification of Candida species. Further, advantages and limitations of these methods are also discussed with respect to their discriminatory power, reproducibility, and ease of performance.