National Chemical Laboratory

About: National Chemical Laboratory is a facility organization based out in Pune, Maharashtra, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Catalysis & Enantioselective synthesis. The organization has 8891 authors who have published 14837 publications receiving 387600 citations.

Quest for Novel Chemical Entities through Incorporation of Silicon in Drug Scaffolds

Abstract: In order to optimize a lead molecule for further development, bioisosteric replacements are generally adopted as one of the strategies. Silicon appears to be the right choice as a carbon isostere because of the similarity in chemical properties. Silicon can be strategically introduced in a molecule to modulate its druglike properties, providing medicinal chemists with an unconventional strategy for replacing a carbon atom. Silicon can also be introduced to replace other heteroatoms and can act as a surrogate of functional groups such as olefin and amide as well. The present Perspective focuses on the opportunities that silicon incorporation offers in drug discovery, with an emphasis on case studies where introduction of silicon has created a benefit over its analog. We have tried to highlight all the recent developments in the field and briefly discuss the challenges associated with them.

Discovery of potential multi-target-directed ligands by targeting host-specific SARS-CoV-2 structurally conserved main protease.

Abstract: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has resulted in the current COVID-19 pandemic. Worldwide this disease has infected over 2.5 million individuals with a mortality rate ranging from 5 to 10%. There are several efforts going on in the drug discovery to control the SARS-CoV-2 viral infection. The main protease (MPro) plays a critical role in viral replication and maturation, thus can serve as the primary drug target. To understand the structural evolution of MPro, we have performed phylogenetic and Sequence Similarity Network analysis, that depicted divergence of Coronaviridae MPro in five clusters specific to viral hosts. This clustering was corroborated with the comparison of MPro structures. Furthermore, it has been observed that backbone and binding site conformations are conserved despite variation in some of the residues. These attributes can be exploited to repurpose available viral protease inhibitors against SARS-CoV-2 MPro. In agreement with this, we performed screening of ∼7100 molecules including active ingredients present in the Ayurvedic anti-tussive medicines, anti-viral phytochemicals and synthetic anti-virals against SARS-CoV-2 MPro as the primary target. We identified several natural molecules like δ-viniferin, myricitrin, taiwanhomoflavone A, lactucopicrin 15-oxalate, nympholide A, afzelin, biorobin, hesperidin and phyllaemblicin B that strongly binds to SARS-CoV-2 MPro. Intrestingly, these molecules also showed strong binding with other potential targets of SARS-CoV-2 infection like viral receptor human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE-2) and RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). We anticipate that our approach for identification of multi-target-directed ligand will provide new avenues for drug discovery against SARS-CoV-2 infection.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

Effects of ozone on wild plants

Abstract: Although there is a great deal of concern about the effects of human activities on biodiversity, until recently there has been very little interest in the effects of ozone on the species that constitute the major part of the flora, the diverse herbaceous and shrubby species of natural and semi-natural communities. However, many wild species have been shown to be at least as sensitive to ozone as crops that show significant yield losses, so there is a pressing need for an evaluation of the risk to wild species posed by ozone. This review attempts to assess progress and highlight problems. It begins with a comment on semantics, discusses the difficulties involved in measuring relative ozone resistance and then proceeds to consider the effects of ozone on growth and resource allocation. The evidence for evolution of resistance is appraised and then the potential effects of several interactions (cutting/grazing, competition, soil water deficit and nutrition) are considered. The review ends with some remarks on observation of oxidant-induced changes in ecosystems.