School Of Basic And Applied Sciences

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    Chloroplast DNA phylogeography of holy basil (Ocimum tenuiflorum) in Indian subcontinent
    (2014) Bast, Felix; Rani, Pooja; Meena, Devendra
    Ocimum tenuiflorum L., holy basil "Tulsi", is an important medicinal plant that is being grown and traditionally revered throughout Indian Subcontinent for thousands of years; however, DNA sequence-based genetic diversity of this aromatic herb is not yet known. In this report, we present our studies on the phylogeography of this species using trnL-trnF intergenic spacer of plastid genome as the DNA barcode for isolates from Indian subcontinent. Our pairwise distance analyses indicated that genetic heterogeneity of isolates remained quite low, with overall mean nucleotide p-distance of 5?10-4. However, our sensitive phylogenetic analysis using maximum likelihood framework was able to reveal subtle intraspecific molecular evolution of this species within the subcontinent. All isolates except that from North-Central India formed a distinct phylogenetic clade, notwithstanding low bootstrap support and collapse of the clade in Bayesian Inference. North-Central isolates occupied more basal position compared to other isolates, which is suggestive of its evolutionarily primitive status. Indian isolates formed a monophyletic and well-supported clade within O. tenuiflorum clade, which indicates a distinct haplotype. Given the vast geographical area of more than 3 million km 2 encompassing many exclusive biogeographical and ecological zones, relatively low rate of evolution of this herb at this locus in India is particularly interesting. ? 2014 Felix Bast et al.
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    A Perspective on Monoamine Oxidase Enzyme as Drug Target: Challenges and Opportunities
    (2017) Kumar, Bhupinder; Gupta, Vivek Prakash; Kumar, Vinod
    The monoamine oxidase (MAO) enzyme is responsible for the deamination of monoamine neurotransmitters and regulates their concentration in the central and peripheral nervous systems. Imbalance in the concentration of neurotransmitters in the brain and central nervous system is linked with the biochemical pathology of various neurogenic disorders. Irreversible MAO inhibitors were the first line drugs developed for the management of severe depression but most of these were withdrawn from the clinical practice due to their fatal side effects including food-drug interactions. New generations of MAO inhibitors were developed which were reversible and selective for one of the enzyme isoform and showed improved pharmacological profile. The discovery of crystal structure of MAO-A & MAO-B isoforms helped in understanding the drug-receptor interactions at the molecular level and designing of ligands with selectivity for either of the isoforms. The current article provides an overview on the MAO enzyme as potential drug target for different disease states. The article describes catalytic mechanism of MAO enzyme, crystal structures of the two MAO isoforms, traditional MAO inhibitors and various problems associated with their use, new developments in the MAO inhibitors and their potential as therapeutic agents especially in neurological disorders.