Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are gaining attention as substitutes for antibiotics in order to combat the risk posed by multi-drug resistant pathogens. Several research groups are engaged in design of potent anti-infective agents using natural AMPs as templates. In this study, a library of peptides with high sequence similarity to Myeloid Antimicrobial Peptide (MAP) family were screened using popular online prediction algorithms. These peptide variants were designed in a manner to retain the conserved residues within the MAP family. The prediction algorithms were found to effectively classify peptides based on their antimicrobial nature. In order to improve the activity of the identified peptides, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, using bilayer and micellar systems could be used to design and predict effect of residue substitution on membranes of microbial and mammalian cells. The inference from MD simulation studies well corroborated with the wet-lab observations indicating that MD-guided rational design could lead to discovery of potent AMPs. The effect of the residue substitution on membrane activity was studied in greater detail using killing kinetic analysis. Killing kinetics studies on Gram-positive, negative and human erythrocytes indicated that a single residue change has a drastic effect on the potency of AMPs. An interesting outcome was a switch from monophasic to biphasic death rate constant of Staphylococcus aureus due to a single residue mutation in the peptide.

N¹⁰-alkylated 2-bromoacridones are a novel series of potent antitumor compounds. DNA binding studies of these compounds were carried out using spectrophotometric titrations, Circular dichroism (CD) measurements using Calf Thymus DNA (CT DNA). The binding constants were identified at a range of K = 0.3 to 3.9 × 10⁵ M⁻¹ and the percentage of hypochromism from the spectral titrations at 28–54%. This study has identified a compound 9 with the good binding affinity of K = 0.39768 × 10⁵ M⁻¹ with CT DNA. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have investigated the changes in structural and dynamic features of native DNA on binding to the active compound 9. All the synthesized compounds have increased the uptake of Vinblastine in MDR KBCh^R-8-5 cells to an extent of 1.25- to1.9-fold than standard modulator Verapamil of similar concentration. These findings allowed us to draw preliminary conclusions about the structural features of 2-bromoacridones and further chemical enhancement will improve the binding affinity of the acridone derivatives to CT-DNA for better drug–DNA interaction. The molecular modeling studies have shown mechanism of action and the binding modes of the acridones to DNA.

Nanotechnology has been the most explored and extensively studied area in recent times. Many devices which were earlier impossible to imagine, are being developed at a lightning speed with the application of nanotechnology. To overcome the challenges offered by the most dreaded diseases, such as cancer or any disease involving the central nervous system or other inaccessible areas of the human body, nanotechnology has been proved to be a boon in making the treatment more target specific and minimizing the toxicities. This review describes a handful of important devices and applications based on nanotechnology in medicine made in recent times. This article also describes in brief the regulatory concerns and the ethical issues pertaining to nanomedical devices.

Molecular docking is a useful method for predicting the binding affinity and conformation of small chemical entities to support lead optimisation. It is also used to virtually screen a large chemical database to find new chemical entities. There are several docking programs available with different algorithms and varying preparation steps. We identify ten quick tips that apply to molecular docking irrespective of the program one might choose. Our objective is to provide the beginners with important things to keep in mind while using molecular docking for their research. We aim to ensure that experts and beginners can perform molecular docking to yield biologically relevant and reproducible results.