Oxidative stress and free radicals have been implicated in ethno-pathogenesis of hypertension and cardiovascular disease. C. ambrosoides Linn. is a popular plant used in the management of oxidative stress related diseases such as hypertension and obesity in Nigeria and West African countries; however, studies validating the antioxidant and antihypertensive potential of this plant is scanty in literature. Thus, this study was designed to investigate the antioxidant and antihypertensive activities of C. ambrosoides ethanolic leaf extract using in-vitro (vis-a-vis) DPPH free radical scavenging assay, nitric oxide radical inhibition assay, lipid peroxidation inhibition assay, ferric reducing power assay and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibition assay) and in-silico (Molecular docking) techniques and results analyzed using GraphPad prism8 software and Multiple test as criteria for statistical comparison and significance. Gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMS) analysis was employed to identify constituent bioactive compounds in the extract. The results of the in-vitro anti-oxidants assays show dose dependent inhibition with the highest activity observed at 2.5 mg/ml. The ferric reducing power activity of the extract significantly (P<0.05) shows higher activity than the ascorbic acid standard at all concentration with the highest activity observed at 2.5mg/ml (77.030% against 69.159%). The extract significantly scavenged DPPH radical than ascorbic acid standard at 2.5mg/ml (81.161% against 75.378%), however at low concentration (1.5mg/ml-0.5mg/ml) the standard shows higher activity than the extract, however dose dependence was maintained. Ascorbic acid standard significantly shows higher activity than the extracts lipid peroxidation inhibition and nitric oxide inhibition activity at all concentration. The extract exhibited high angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibited in a dose dependent manner with the highest activity at 2.5mg/ml (95.990%). The ACE inhibitory potential of C. ambrosoides extract was corroborated by in-silico studies which revealed that 14 out of the 96 identified bioactive compounds through GCMS exhibited higher negative binding affinities than lisinopril (-6.8 Kcal/mol), with the compound 2,4-Diamino-6,8-bis[3,4-dichlorophenyl]-5,6-dihydro-8H-thiapyrano[4',3'4,5]thieno[2,3d]pyrimidine having the highest binding affinity (-8.0Kcal/mol) In conclusion, it is suggested that the anti-hypertensive activity demonstrated by C. ambrosoides might be mediated via its anti-oxidant ability and ACE inhibitory potential.

Viral diseases have proven to be an existential threat to man due to its fatality and its consistent emergence and re-emergence, so the need for novel ideas in combating this menace. Advances in genetic studies has proven to be indispensable in this fight as knowledge of organismal genetic variability has been useful in therapy development, as well as in mounting defense against the treacherous infectious agents. However, there are still fallow grounds needing to be explored in this war which informed this study, with focus on expression profiling of similar immune-response-genes in SARS-COV-1 and influenza A virus (AIV) in respect to neutropenia (NP), using integrated bioinformatics techniques such as extraction of microarray dataset in the gene expression omnibus (GEO) database, generation of DEGs using GEO2R tool, construction of protein-protein interaction (PPI) network using string and Cytoscape software, Venn diagram analysis and then gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) for enrichment and pathway analysis respectively. Ten genes which includes ELANE, ITGA2B, CXCR1, CSF3R, SPI1, MS4A3, MMP8, CEACAM8, RNASE3, and DEFA4 were identified, with ELANE gene moreover identified as a key gene, which might be responsible in the regulation of immune response during viral infection, based on its characteristic feature in the PPI network.

This study is done to identify significantly expressed genes of influenza A virus infection in human, facilitated by the idea of checking for the presence of immune related genes in these significantly expressed genes. Considering the usage of miRNA dataset, the gene expression profile GSE66597 was downloaded from the gene expression omnibus(GEO) database, and then a subsequent generation of differentially expressed genes(DEGs) using the GEO2R tool. A total of 1107 genes was generated with 703 upregulated and 404 downregulated genes. The protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed using string and Cytoscape software which resulted in generating the core genes, hub genes, and bottleneck genes. Subsequent Venn diagram analysis finally gave the six candidate genes CRP, CCL5, IL17A, STAT1, CD34, SPI1, subjected to gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) for enrichment and pathway analysis respectively. Out of the initial six candidate genes, four of these genes CRP, CCL5, IL17A, are immune related, and initiated particularly by the presence of influenza A virus.