Dengue infections are still a worldwide burden, especially in Indonesia. There is no specific medication against the dengue virus. Recently, many types of research have been conducted to discover a new drug for dengue virus using natural resource extracts. Indonesia, as a tropical country, has a wide biodiversity. There are several medicinal plants in Indonesia that are believed to possess anti-dengue activity, such as Myristica fatua, Cymbopogon citratus, and Acorus calamus plants. We conducted an in vitro laboratory experiment of several extracts from Indonesian herbs combined with in silico analysis. The extracts were evaluated for safety and antiviral activity in Huh7it-1 cell lines, using a single dose of 20 µg/mL and dose-dependent (5, 10, 20, 40, 80 and 160 µg/mL) of plant extracts against dengue virus serotype 2 (DENV-2) NGC strain. The DMSO 0.1% was used as a negative control. The cytotoxic aspect was assessed by counting the cell viability, while the antiviral activity was calculated by counting the average inhibition. The selectivity index (SI) of plant extracts were performed from a ratio of CC₅₀/EC₅₀ value. In silico analysis was conducted to determine the free energy of binding between NS5 of dengue virus with bioactive compounds contained in Myristica fatua, Cymbopogon citratus and Acorus calamus extract plants. We determined that all extracts were not toxic against Huh7it-1 cell lines. The methanolic extracts of A. calamus, C. citratus, and M. fatua showed inhibition of DENV-2 at a dose of 20 µg/mL to 96.5%, 98.9%, and 122.7%, respectively. The dose-dependent effects showed that M. fatua has the best inhibition activity towards DENV-2. Molecular docking result showed that artesunic acid within M. fatua has the best free energy of binding (−7.2 kcal/mol), followed by homoegonol (−7.1 kcal/mol) which was slightly different from artesunic acid among others. The methanolic extracts of A. calamus, C. citratus, and M. fatua showed prospective anti-dengue activities both in vitro and in silico. Future research should be conducted to find the pure extracts of all useful herbs as a new candidate of antiviral drug.

Acetylcholinesterase-inhibitory peptide has gained much importance since it can inhibit acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and increase the availability of acetylcholine in cholinergic synapses, enhancing cholinergic transmission in pharmacological treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Natural peptides have received considerable attention as biologically important substances as a source of AChE inhibitors. These natural peptides have high potential pharmaceutical and medicinal values due to their bioactivities as neuroprotective and neurodegenerative treatment activities. These peptides have attracted great interest in the pharmaceutical industries, in order to design potential peptides for use in the prophylactic and therapy purposes. Some natural peptides and their derivatives have high commercial values and have succeeded in reaching the pharmaceutical market. A large number of peptides are already in preclinical and clinical pipelines for treatment of various diseases. This review highlights the recent researches on the various natural peptides and future prospects for AD management.

Pandanus odoratissimus Linn. (Pandanaceae) seed extract is known to have antioxidant activities. However, the potential hepatoprotective effect is still unclear.To investigate the hepatoprotection ...

Piper crocatum and Persea americana Mill leaves are commonly used in traditional medicinal remedies, such as antidiabetes, antitumors and Alzheimer treatment. However, the extensive use of plant extracts over worldwide becomes significant concerns including its safety, efficacy, and quality. Therefore, the accurate scientific evaluation has become a precondition for acceptance of herbal health claims. The aim of this study was to determine the antioxidant activities of Piper crocatum Ruiz & Pav and Persea americana Mill leaf extracts. Isolation of antioxidant fractions were conducted using organic solvent extraction techniques. Antioxidant assays were conducted by using in vitro and in vivo methods involving DPPH and MDA methods. In this study, in vitro assays of Persea americana Mill and Piper crocatum Ruiz & Pav leaf extracts showed the best activity in water fraction. Moreover, in vivo assays of both plant leaf extracts showed the best dose at 8 mg. Persea americana Mill and Piper crocatum Ruiz & Pav leaf extracts have been successfully determined in antioxidant actions in vitro and in vivo. Persea americana Mill in water and ethanol solvents exhibit strong antioxidant properties. Meanwile, Piper crocatum Ruiz & Pav exhibit moderate activity in water and weak antioxidant activity in ethanol. Both plant leaves showed that 8 mg dose was better than the dose of 4 mg and 16 mg in vivo.

The Zika virus disease, also known as Zika fever is an arboviral disease that became epidemic in the Pacific Islands and had spread to 18 territories of the Americas in 2016. Zika virus disease has been linked to several health problems such as microcephaly and the Guillain–Barré syndrome, but to date, there has been no vaccine available for Zika. Problems related to the development of a vaccine include the vaccination target, which covers pregnant women and children, and the antibody dependent enhancement (ADE), which can be caused by non-neutralizing antibodies. The peptide vaccine was chosen as a focus of this study as a safer platform to develop the Zika vaccine. In this study, a collection of Zika proteomes was used to find the best candidates for T- and B-cell epitopes using the immunoinformatics approach. The most promising T-cell epitopes were mapped using the selected human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles, and further molecular docking and dynamics studies showed a good peptide-HLA interaction for the best major histocompatibility complex-II (MHC-II) epitope. The most promising B-cell epitopes include four linear peptides predicted to be cross-reactive with T-cells, and conformational epitopes from two proteins accessible by antibodies in their native biological assembly. It is believed that the use of immunoinformatics methods is a promising strategy against the Zika viral infection in designing an efficacious multiepitope vaccine.

The data presented in this article are structures of dipeptides, tripeptides and tetrapeptides constructed from all possible combinations of 20 natural and common amino acids. In total, the data contains 168400 peptides. The structures are available in their simplified molecular-input line-entry system (SMILES) and three-dimensional (3D) formats. The type of data are text files, which could be accessed and modified either by text editor applications (e.g. Notepad++) or by molecule visualization softwares (e.g., YASARA View). These structures could be used further in virtual screening campaigns in the early stage of drug discovery projects.