Natural products have played a critical role in medicine due to their ability to bind and modulate cellular targets involved in disease. Medicinal plants hold a variety of bioactive scaffolds for the treatment of multiple disorders. The less adverse effects, affordability, and easy accessibility highlight their potential in traditional remedies. Identifying pharmacological targets from active ingredients of medicinal plants has become a hot topic for biomedical research to generate innovative therapies. By developing an unprecedented opportunity for the systematic investigation of traditional medicines, network pharmacology is evolving as a systematic paradigm and becoming a frontier research field of drug discovery and development. The advancement of network pharmacology has opened up new avenues for understanding the complex bioactive components found in various medicinal plants. This study is attributed to a comprehensive summary of network pharmacology based on current research, highlighting various active ingredients, related techniques/tools/databases, and drug discovery and development applications. Moreover, this study would serve as a protocol for discovering novel compounds to explore the full range of biological potential of traditionally used plants. We have attempted to cover this vast topic in the review form. We hope it will serve as a significant pioneer for researchers working with medicinal plants by employing network pharmacology approaches.

Chlamydia trachomatis, a Gram-negative bacterium that infects the rectum, urethra, congenital sites, and columnar epithelium of the cervix. It is a major cause of preventable blindness, ectopic pregnancy, and bacterial sexually transmitted infections worldwide. There is currently no licensed multi-epitope vaccination available for this pathogen. This study used core proteomics, immuno-informatics, and subtractive proteomics approaches to identify the best antigenic candidates for the development of a multi-epitope-based vaccine (MEBV). These approaches resulted in six vaccine candidates: Type III secretion system translocon subunit CopD2, SctW family type III secretion system gatekeeper subunit CopN, SycD/LcrH family type III secretion system chaperone Scc2, CT847 family type III secretion system effector, hypothetical protein CTDEC_0668, and CHLPN 76kDa-like protein. A variety of immuno-informatics tools were used to predict B and T cell epitopes from vaccine candidate proteins. An in silico vaccine was developed using carefully selected epitopes (11 CTL, 2 HTL & 10 LBL) and then docked with the MHC molecules (MHC I & MHC II) and human TLR4. The vaccine was coupled with Cholera toxin subunit B (CTB) adjuvant to boost the immune response. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, molecular docking, and MMGBSA analysis were carried out to analyze the molecular interactions and binding affinity of MEBV with TLR4 and MHC molecules. To achieve the highest level of vaccine protein expression, the MEBV was cloned and reverse-translated in Escherichia coli. The highest level of expression was achieved, and a CAI score of 0.97 was reported. Further experimental validation of the MEBV is required to prove its efficacy. The vaccine developed will be useful in preventing infections caused by C. trachomatis.

A silent monster, breast cancer, is a challenging medical task for researchers. Breast cancer is a leading cause of death in women with respect to other cancers. A case of breast cancer is diagnosed among women every 19 seconds, and every 74 seconds, a woman dies of breast cancer somewhere in the world. Several risk factors, such as genetic and environmental factors, favor breast cancer development. This review tends to provide deep insights regarding the genetics of breast cancer along with multiple diagnostic and therapeutic approaches as problem-solving negotiators to prevent the progression of breast cancer. This assembled data mainly aims to discuss omics-based approaches to provide enthralling diagnostic biomarkers and emerging novel therapies to combat breast cancer. This review article intends to pave a new path for the discovery of effective treatment options.

Plesiomonas shigelloides, an aquatic bacterium belonging to the Enterobacteriaceae family, is a frequent cause of gastroenteritis with diarrhea and gastrointestinal severe disease. Despite decades of research, discovering a licensed and globally accessible vaccine is still years away. Developing a putative vaccine that can combat the Plesiomonas shigelloides infection by boosting population immunity against P. shigelloides is direly needed. In the framework of the current study, the entire proteome of P. shigelloides was explored using subtractive genomics integrated with the immunoinformatics approach for designing an effective vaccine construct against P. shigelloides. The overall stability of the vaccine construct was evaluated using molecular docking, which demonstrated that MEV showed higher binding affinities with toll-like receptors (TLR4: 51.5 ± 10.3, TLR2: 60.5 ± 9.2) and MHC receptors(MHCI: 79.7 ± 11.2 kcal/mol, MHCII: 70.4 ± 23.7). Further, the therapeutic efficacy of the vaccine construct for generating an efficient immune response was evaluated by computational immunological simulation. Finally, computer-based cloning and improvement in codon composition without altering amino acid sequence led to the development of a proposed vaccine. In a nutshell, the findings of this study add to the existing knowledge about the pathogenesis of this infection. The schemed MEV can be a possible prophylactic agent for individuals infected with P. shigelloides. Nevertheless, further authentication is required to guarantee its safeness and immunogenic potential.

Palindromic rheumatism is a syndrome characterized by recurrent, self-resolving, and inflammatory attacks in and around the joints that have long recognized association with rheumatoid arthritis. PR attacks mostly start in small joints i.e. knees, shoulder, and small joints of the hand. Whether PR should be considered as a single disease or prodrome of RA remains a thought-provoking question. Multiple genetic and environmental factors contribute to the development of PR. Many studies have explained the relationship between a high concentration of Anti-CCP antibodies and PR. Potential benefits of Gold therapy have been recognized in literature but still, there are some questions about toxicity and efficacy that need further considerations. In addition to that anti-malarial drugs, Abatacept, Tofacitinib, and Rituximab showed the variable result in different patients and needed further study to validate their medical use. Moreover, yarrow, oat, colchicum, dill, fennel, wild rue, bitter melon, willow, garlic, and burdock seem suitable candidates to treat rheumatoid although their use in PR is still not reported. Additional experimental researches on these drugs lead to an increase in our knowledge to fight against PR in the future using novel therapeutic approaches. We have attempted to cover this topic in a chapter form to provide a comprehensive view and hope that it will serve as a reference for clinicians who treat patients with PR.