Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, has killed more than a million people worldwide, and researchers are constantly working to develop therapeutics in the treatment and prevention of this new viral infection. To infect and induced pathogenesis as observed in other viral infections, we postulated that SARS-CoV-2 may also require an escalation in the anabolic metabolism, such as glucose and glutamine, to support its energy and biosynthetic requirements during the infection cycle. Recently, the requirement of altered glucose metabolism in SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis was demonstrated, but the role of dysregulated glutamine metabolism is not yet mentioned for its infection. In this perspective, we have attempted to provide a summary of possible biochemical events on putative metabolic reprograming of glutamine in host cells upon SARS-CoV-2 infection by comparison to other viral infections/cancer metabolism and available clinical data or research on SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis. This systematic hypothesis concluded the vital role of glutaminase-1 (GLS1), phosphoserine aminotransferase (PSAT1), hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1α), mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1), glutamine-fructose amidotransferase 1/2 (GFAT1/2), and transcription factor Myc as key cellular factors to mediate and promote the glutamine metabolic reprogramming in SARS-CoV-2 infected cells. In absence of concrete data available for SARS-CoV-2 induced metabolic reprogramming of glutamine, this study efforts to connect the gaps with available clinical shreds of evidence in SARS-CoV-2 infection with altered glutamine metabolism and hopefully could be beneficial in the designing of strategic methods for therapeutic development with elucidation usingin vitroorin vivoapproaches.

Interleukin 6 polymorphisms as an indicator of COVID-19 severity in humans. Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics. Accepted 27 May 2020.

Caffeine, which shares consubstantial structural similarity with purine adenosine, has been demonstrated as a nonselective adenosine receptor antagonist for eliciting most of the biological functions at physiologically relevant dosages. Accumulating evidence supports caffeine's beneficial effects against different disorders, such as total cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes. Conversely, paradoxical effects are also linked to caffeine ingestion in humans including hypertension–hypotension and tachycardia–bradycardia. These observations suggest the association of caffeine action with its ingested concentration and/or concurrent interaction with preferential molecular targets to direct explicit events in the human body. Thus, a coherent analysis of the functional targets of caffeine, relevant to normal physiology, and disease pathophysiology, is required to understand the pharmacology of caffeine. This review provides a broad overview of the experimentally validated targets of caffeine, particularly those of therapeutic interest, and the impacts of caffeine on organ‐specific physiology and pathophysiology. Overall, the available empirical and epidemiological evidence supports the dose‐dependent functional activities of caffeine and advocates for further studies to get insights into the caffeine‐induced changes under specific conditions, such as asthma, DNA repair, and cancer, in view of its therapeutic applications.

The human gut microbiota is increasingly recognized as a pivotal factor in diabetes management, playing a significant role in the body’s response to treatment. However, it is important to understand that long-term usage of medicines like metformin and other diabetic treatments can result in problems, gastrointestinal discomfort, and dysbiosis of the gut flora. Advanced sequencing technologies have improved our understanding of the gut microbiome’s role in diabetes, uncovering complex interactions between microbial composition and metabolic health. We explore how the gut microbiota affects glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity by examining a variety of -omics data, including genomics, transcriptomics, epigenomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and metagenomics. Machine learning algorithms and genome-scale modeling are now being applied to find microbiological biomarkers associated with diabetes risk, predicted disease progression, and guide customized therapy. This study holds promise for specialized diabetic therapy. Despite significant advances, some concerns remain unanswered, including understanding the complex relationship between diabetes etiology and gut microbiota, as well as developing user-friendly technological innovations. This mini-review explores the relationship between multiomics, precision medicine, and machine learning to improve our understanding of the gut microbiome’s function in diabetes. In the era of precision medicine, the ultimate goal is to improve patient outcomes through personalized treatments.

A new Coronaviridae strain, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), emerged from Wuhan city of China and caused one of the substantial global health calamities in December 2019. Even though several vaccines and drugs have been developed worldwide since COVID-19, a cost-effective drug with the least side effects is still unavailable. Currently, plant-derived compounds are mostly preferred to develop antiviral therapeutics due to its less toxicity, easy access, and cost-effective characteristics. Therefore, in this study, 124 phytochemical compounds from plants of Lauraceae family with medicinal properties were virtually screened against SARS-CoV-2 M^pro. Identification of four phytomolecules, i.e., cassameridine, laetanine, litseferine and cassythicine, with docking scores −9.3, −8.8, −8.6, and −8.6 kcal/mol, respectively, were undertaken by virtual screening, and molecular docking. Furthermore, the molecular dynamic simulation and essential dynamics analysis have contributed in understanding the stability and inhibitory effect of these selected compounds. These phytomolecules can be considered for further in vitro and in vivo experimental study to develop anti-SARS-CoV-2 therapeutics targeting the main protease (M^pro).