Department of Biotechnology

About: Department of Biotechnology is a government organization based out in New Delhi, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Silver nanoparticle. The organization has 4800 authors who have published 5033 publications receiving 82022 citations.

Shape based virtual screening and molecular docking towards designing novel pancreatic lipase inhibitors.

Abstract: Increase in obesity rates and obesity associated health issues became one of the greatest health concerns in the present world population. With alarming increase in obese percentage there is a need to design new drugs related to the obesity targets. Among the various targets linked to obesity, pancreatic lipase was one of the promising targets for obesity treatment. Using the in silico methods like structure based virtual screening, QikProp, docking studies and binding energy calculations three molecules namely zinc85531017, zinc95919096 and zinc33963788 from the natural database were reported as the potential inhibitors for the pancreatic lipase. Among them zinc95919096 presented all the interactions matching to both standard and crystal ligand and hence it can be further proceeded to drug discovery process.

Bioremediation of Pulp and Paper mill Effluent by Dominant Aboriginal Microbes and Their Consortium

Abstract: Paper mills are characterized as polluting industries, these use pulping process for papermanufacturing, due to which toxic chemicals released into environment. Therefore, the biological oxygendemand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the emanating stream is high and dissolved oxygen (DO) is low. To resolve this predicament, two dominant bacteria Bacillus subtilis and Micrococcus luteus, and one fungi Phanerochaete crysosporium was isolated from pulp and paper mills effluent (PPME) soils. Thesemicrobes were individually and in consortium were inoculated in (PPME) without diluting and no addition ofcarbon or nitrogen sources. Experiment was conducted under shaking and stationary conditions for nine days. These microbes were found competent of reducing BOD up to 87.2 %, COD up to 94.7% and lignin content up to 97% after 9 d under shaking conditions and brought down pH of raw PPME to neutral and increased DO from 0.8 mg/L to 6.8 mg/L.

A systematic reconstruction and constraint-based analysis of Leishmania donovani metabolic network: identification of potential antileishmanial drug targets

Abstract: Visceral leishmaniasis, a lethal parasitic disease, is caused by the protozoan parasite Leishmania donovani. The absence of an effective vaccine, drug toxicity and parasite resistance necessitates the identification of novel drug targets. Reconstruction of genome-scale metabolic models and their simulation has been established as an important tool for systems-level understanding of a microorganism's metabolism. In this work, amalgamating the tools and techniques of computational systems biology with rigorous manual curation, a constraint-based metabolic model for Leishmania donovani BPK282A1 has been developed. New functional annotations for 18 formerly hypothetical or erroneously annotated genes (encountered during iterative refinement of the model) have been proposed. Further, to formulate an accurate biomass objective function, experimental determination of previously uncharacterized biomass constituents was performed. The developed model is a highly compartmentalized metabolic model, comprising 1159 reactions, 1135 metabolites and 604 genes. The model exhibited around 76% accuracy for the prediction of experimental phenotypes of gene knockout studies and drug inhibition assays. Employing in silico gene knockout studies, we identified 28 essential genes with negligible sequence identity to the human proteins. Moreover, by dissecting the functional interdependencies of metabolic pathways, 70 synthetic lethal pairs were identified. Finally, in order to delineate stage-specific metabolism, gene-expression data of the amastigote stage residing in human macrophages were integrated into the model. By comparing the flux distribution, we illustrated the stage-specific differences in metabolism and environmental conditions that are in good agreement with the experimental findings. The developed model can serve as a highly enriched knowledgebase of legacy data and an important tool for generating experimentally verifiable hypotheses.

Nanotechnology based anti-infectives to fight microbial intrusions.

Abstract: With the rise in human population across the globe especially in developing countries, the incidence of microbial infections are increasing with greater pace. On the other hand, available medication and therapies are found to be insufficient for the complete cure of such microbial infections due to the development of resistance against various antibiotics. Therefore, to cope up the menace of microbial infections and drug resistance, there is demand for new and compelling technology, which has the ability to impede these problems. Many research groups worldwide are finding a ray of hope in nanomaterials owing to their unique properties. In the present review we have discussed the reasons behind the development of new materials based on nanotechnology. It is mainly focused on pioneering studies on application of nanomaterials like carbon nanotube, fullerene, dendrimers, nanocomposite and metal nanoparticles in combating dreadful pathogens. Moreover, the concerns about their toxicity have also been discussed.

Genome-Wide Identification and Expression Analysis of Homeodomain Leucine Zipper Subfamily IV (HDZ IV) Gene Family from Musa accuminata.

Abstract: The homeodomain zipper family (HD-ZIP) of transcription factors is present only in plants and plays important role in the regulation of plant-specific processes. The subfamily IV of HDZ transcription factors (HD-ZIP IV) has primarily been implicated in the regulation of epidermal structure development. Though this gene family is present in all lineages of land plants, members of this gene family have not been identified in banana, which is one of the major staple fruit crops. In the present work, we identified 21 HDZIV encoding genes in banana by the computational analysis of banana genome resource. Our analysis suggested that these genes putatively encode proteins having all the characteristic domains of HDZIV transcription factors. The phylogenetic analysis of the banana HDZIV family genes further confirmed that after separation from a common ancestor, the banana, and poales lineages might have followed distinct evolutionary paths. Further, we conclude that segmental duplication played a major role in the evolution of banana HDZIV encoding genes. All the identified banana HDZIV genes expresses in different banana tissue, however at varying levels. The transcript levels of some of the banana HDZIV genes were also detected in banana fruit pulp, suggesting their putative role in fruit attributes. A large number of genes of this family showed modulated expression under drought and salinity stress. Taken together, the present work lays a foundation for elucidation of functional aspects of the banana HDZIV encoding genes and for their possible use in the banana improvement programs.