Cardiac glycosides are natural sterols and constitute a group of secondary metabolites isolated from plants and animals. These cardiotonic agents are well recognized and accepted in the treatment of various cardiac diseases as they can increase the rate of cardiac contractions by acting on the cellular sodium potassium ATPase pump. However, a growing number of recent efforts were focused on exploring the antitumor and antiviral potential of these compounds. Several reports suggest their antitumor properties and hence, today cardiac glycosides (CG) represent the most diversified naturally derived compounds strongly recommended for the treatment of various cancers. Mutated or dysregulated transcription factors have also gained prominence as potential therapeutic targets that can be selectively targeted. Thus, we have explored the recent advances in CGs mediated cancer scope and have considered various signaling pathways, molecular aberration, transcription factors (TFs), and oncogenic genes to highlight potential therapeutic targets in cancer management.

The present article reports the complete draft genome annotation of earthworm Eisenia fetida, obtained from the manuscript entitled "Timing and Scope of Genomic Expansion within Annelida: Evidence from Homeoboxes in the Genome of the Earthworm E. fetida" (Zwarycz et al., 2015) and provides the data on the repetitive elements, protein coding genes and noncoding RNAs present in the genome dataset of the species. The E. fetida protein coding genes were predicted from AUGUSTUS gene prediction and subsequently annotated based on their sequence similarity, Gene Ontology (GO) functional terms, InterPro domains, Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COGs) and KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) pathways information. The genome wide comparison of orthologous clusters and phylogenomic analysis of the core genes were performed to understand the events of genome evolution and genomic diversity between E. fetida and its related metazoans. In addition, the genome dataset was screened to identify the crucial stem cell markers, regeneration specific genes and immune-related genes and their functionally enriched GO terms were predicted from Fisher׳s enrichment analysis. The E. fetida genome annotation data containing the GFF (general feature format) annotation file, predicted coding gene sequences and translated protein sequences were deposited to the figshare repository under the DOI: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.6142322.v1.

In annelid worms, the nerve cord serves as a crucial organ to control the sensory and behavioral physiology. The inadequate genome resource of earthworms has prioritized the comprehensive analysis of their transcriptome dataset to monitor the genes express in the nerve cord and predict their role in the neurotransmission and sensory perception of the species. The present study focuses on identifying the potential transcripts and predicting their functional features by annotating the transcriptome dataset of nerve cord tissues prepared by Gong et al., 2010 from the earthworm Eisenia fetida. Totally 9762 transcripts were successfully annotated against the NCBI nr database using the BLASTX algorithm and among them 7680 transcripts were assigned to a total of 44,354 GO terms. The conserve domain analysis indicated the over representation of P-loop NTPase domain and calcium binding EF-hand domain. The COG functional annotation classified 5860 transcript sequences into 25 functional categories. Further, 4502 contig sequences were found to map with 124 KEGG pathways. The annotated contig dataset exhibited 22 crucial neuropeptides having considerable matches to the marine annelid Platynereis dumerilii, suggesting their possible role in neurotransmission and neuromodulation. In addition, 108 human stem cell marker homologs were identified including the crucial epigenetic regulators, transcriptional repressors and cell cycle regulators, which may contribute to the neuronal and segmental regeneration. The complete functional annotation of this nerve cord transcriptome can be further utilized to interpret genetic and molecular mechanisms associated with neuronal development, nervous system regeneration and nerve cord function.