Malaria has been a major life threatening mosquito borne disease from long since. Unavailability of any effective vaccine and recent emergence of multi drug resistant strains of malaria pathogen Plasmodium falciparum continues to cause persistent deaths in the tropical and sub-tropical region. As a result, demands for new targets for more effective anti-malarial drugs are escalating. Transketolase is an enzyme of the pentose phosphate pathway; a novel pathway which is involved in energy generation and nucleic acid synthesis. Moreover, significant difference in homology between Plasmodium falciparum transketolase (Pftk) and human (Homo sapiens) transketolase makes it a suitable candidate for drug therapy. Our present study is aimed to predict the 3D structure of Plasmodium falciparum transketolase and design an inhibitor against it. The primary and secondary structural features of the protein is calculated by ProtParam and SOPMA respectively which revealed the protein is composed of 43.3 % alpha helix and 33.04 % random coils along with 15.62 % extended strands, 8.04 % beta turns. The three dimensional structure of the transketolase is constructed using homology modeling tool MODELLAR utilizing several available transketolase structures as templates. The structure is then subjected to deep optimization and validated by structure validation tools PROCHECK, VERIFY 3D, ERRAT, QMEAN. The predicted model scored 0.74 for global model reliability in PROCHECK analysis, which ensures the quality of the model. According to VERIFY 3D the predicted model scored 0.77 which determines good environmental profile along with ERRAT score of 78.313 which is below 95 % rejection limit. Protein-protein and residue–residue interaction networks are generated by STRING and RING server respectively. CASTp server was used to analyze active sites and His 109, Asn 108 and His 515 are found to be more positive site to dock the substrate, in addition molecular docking simulation with Autodock vina determined the estimated free energy of molecular binding was of −6.6 kcal/mol for most favorable binding of 6′-Methyl-Thiamin Diphosphate. This predicted structure of Pftk will serve first hand in the future development of effective Pftk inhibitors with potential anti-malarial activity. However, this is a preliminary study of designing an inhibitor against Plasmodium falciparum 3D7; the results await justification by in vitro and in vivo experimentations.

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) instigating Chikungunya fever is a global infective menace resulting in high fever, weakened joint-muscle pain, and brain inflammation. Inaccessibility and unavailability of effective drugs have led us to an uncertain arena when it comes to providing proper medical treatment to the affected people. In this study, authentic encroachment has been made concerning the peptide-based epitope vaccine designing against CHIKV. A Proteome-wide search was performed to locate a conserved portion among the accessible viral outer membrane proteins which showcase a remarkable immune response using specific immunoinformatics and docking simulation tools. Primarily, the most probable immunogenic envelope glycoproteins E1 and E2 were identified from the UniProt database depending on their antigenicity scores. Subsequently, we selected two distinctive sequences “SEDVYANTQLVLQRP” and “IMLLYPDHPTLLSYR” in both E1 and E2 glycoproteins respectively. These two sequences identified as the most potent T and B cell epitope-based peptides as they interacted with 6 and 7 HLA-I and 5 HLA-II molecules with an extremely low IC50 score that was verified by molecular docking. Moreover, the sequences possess no allergenicity and are certainly located outside the transmembrane region. In addition, the sequences exhibited 88.46% and 100.00% Conservancy, covering high population coverage of 89.49% to 94.74% and 60.51% to 88.87% respectively in endemic countries. The identified peptide SEDVYANTQLVLQRP and IMLLYPDHPTLLSYR can be utilized next for the development of peptide-based epitope vaccine contrary to CHIKV, so further documentations and experimentations like Antigen testing, Antigen production, Clinical trials are needed to prove the validity of it. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma

Garo Hills represents one of earliest human habitation in Bangladesh preserving its ancient cultures due to the geographic location. It is situated in the most northern part of Durgapur sub-district having border with Meghalaya of India. Durgapur is rich in ethnic diversity with Garo and Hajong as the major ethnic groups along with Bangalee settlers from the mainstream population. Thus the ethnomedicinal practice in Garo Hills is considered rich as it encompasses three different groups. Present survey was undertaken to compile the medicinal plant usage among the various communities of the Garo Hills. The ethnomedicinal data was collected through open and focussed group discussions, and personal interviews using semi-structured questionnaire. A total of 185 people were interviewed, including the three community people and their traditional health practitioners (THPs). The usage of the plants were further analysed and are presented as use value (UV), informant consensus factor (ICF) and fidelity level (FL). A total of 71 plants from 46 families and 64 genera were documented during our survey. Gastrointestinal disorders represented the major ailment category with the use of 36 plant species followed by dermatological problems (25 species). The ICF ranged from 0.90 to 0.99, with an average value of 0.96. Leaves (41) were the principle source of medication followed by fruits (27). Trees (33) were the major plant type used in the ethnobotanical practice. A total of 25 plants showed high FL (70.91 to 100 %) with 12 plants showing maximum FL (100 %). A number of the plants appear to have unique ethnomedicinal uses. Present investigation revealed a rich traditional practice in the studied region, which provides primary health care to the local community. This compilation of the ethnobotanical knowledge can help researchers to identify the uses of various medicinal plants that have a long history of use.