Background: Medicinal plants are a source of phytochemicals and they are used for the treatment of several oxidative stress-related or other diseases for their effectiveness, low toxicity and easy availability. Five traditionally used and less characterized herbaceous weeds of West Bengal, India, namely, Heliotropium indicum, Tridax procumbens, Cleome rutidosperma, Commelina benghalensis and Euphorbia hirta, were investigated for the current research study. Methods: Aqueous and 70% ethanolic extracts of the leaves were analyzed for estimation of essential phytochemicals and to evaluate their in vitro antioxidant status, medicinal properties and cytotoxic effects. To the best of our knowledge, several assays and comparative evaluations using these herbs are reported for the first time. For quantitative study, UV-vis spectrophotometry and high-performance liquid chromatography with diode array detector HPLC-DAD techniques were used. Antibacterial properties were investigated using the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method. For in vitro anti-lithiatic study, a titration method was used. The cell viability assay was done using peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Results: The aqueous extract exhibits higher content of polyphenols, flavonoids, tannins and inhibition percentage values for free radical scavenging assays, whereas the 70% ethanolic extract exhibits higher content of alkaloids and cardiac glycosides. HPLC-DAD analysis of 70% ethanolic extracts led us to identify 10 predominant phenolic constituents. Euphorbia hirta extracts showed minimum cytotoxicity (cell death ~2.5% and 4% in water and 70% ethanolic extract, respectively), whereas Cleome rutidosperma and Tridax procumbens’ 70% ethanolic extracts showed higher cell death (~13% and 28%, respectively), compared with the control (cell death ~10-12%). Conclusions: The study concluded that of all the medicinal weeds selected for the current study, Euphorbia hirta possesses the highest amount of bioactive compounds and hence exhibits the highest in vitro antioxidant activity and promising in vitro medicinal properties.

The last few decades have witnessed 'one size fits all' kind of conventional treatment strategy i.e. a similar line of treatment or usage of the same drug to treat a particular disease. This approach is not associated with specific personal characteristics but with individual genetic constitutions. Precision oncology holds great opportunities to improve prediction, treatment and follow-up care for the benefit of cancer patients. In this study, many pieces of literature and various clinical data have been surveyed to understand how multiple genes are responsible for a particular cancer type and tabulate them. Having the genetic information of a patient and knowing the genes that are susceptible to mutation can help in the diagnosis. That in turn help to get the most tailored medicines, which will decrease the chances of treatment failure, which is quite common in cancer therapies. This review focuses on providing an idea of the genes whose mutation directly or indirectly can lead to cancer and other diseases also, and hence might be helpful to design separate treatment strategies for each individual in future.

Objective: The present study undertakes a comparative analysis of the level of secondary metabolites present in the leaf, flower and stem of the two ornamental plants, Allamanda blanchetii and Allamanda cathartica. Methods:The two plant species, Allamanda blanchetii and Allamanda cathartica were collected, washed, shade dried in room temperature and powered in mechanical grinder. Phytochemicals were extracted from the power with methanol and double distilled water. The estimation of flavonoids, polyphenols, polysaccharide were done by standard methods and the anti-oxidant activity was measured by 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) discoloration assay.Results: Our study reveals that the flower of both species contain highest amount of secondary metabolites in crude methanolic and aqueous extracts. In case of leaf, the methanolic extracts contain higher amount of polyphenol, flavonoid and anti-oxidant property in comparison to aqueous extracts, where as the aqueous extract contain higher amount of polysaccharide content than its counterpart. In stem, crude organic extract has higher amount of polyphenol and flavonoid and the aqueous extract has higher amount of polysaccharide and anti-oxidant property. Conclusion:The flower of Allamanda cathartica and Allamanda blanchetii has higher amount of flavonoids, polyphenols, polysaccharide and the floral extracts display comparatively higher anti-oxidant property.

Green synthesis of AuNPs that have potential anticancer properties is relatively simple, cheap and eco-friendly compared to the conventional chemical/physical approaches. Quercetin is known for its antioxidant and anticancer properties, i.e., induction of apoptosis, tumour suppression, etc. This study aims to characterize and compare between two differentially synthesized Quercetin-Au-Nanoconjugates, Q-Au-NCTSC and Q-AU-NCLE using a pure biochemical reductant, trisodium citrate and its natural alternative, citrus lemon extract respectively. Antibacterial and anticancer effects of both the nanoconjugates would also be checked and compared to analyze whether the use of a lemon extract has any impact on its structure and functional properties. A series of physicochemical characterizations viz. UV-Vis spectrophotometry, DLS, Zeta Potential, FT-IR, and SEM of the nanoconjugates were done. Further, evaluation of in vitro antibacterial activity was done against two Gram-positive bacteria: Staphylococcus aureus; Bacillus Subtilis; and two Gram-negative bacteria: Pseudomonas aeruginosa; Klebsiella pneumonia and cytotoxicity efficacy were checked on breast cancer (MCF7) cell line. Effective reduction of Au+3 to Au0 with quantum confinement in nano-regime was confirmed by a change of bulk colour of the HAu+3Cl4 solution, whereas conjugation of Quercetin to AuNPs was confirmed by FTIR. DLS showed the average size of the Q-Au-NCTSC and Q-Au-NCLE are 30 nm and 35.6 nm, respectively. The Q-Au-NCLE has shown comparatively better stability and antibacterial activity. In the case of cytotoxicity study on MCF7 cell line, the Q-Au-NCLE showed better efficacy (cell death ~ 75%) with respect to Q-Au-NCTSC (cell death ~66%). Natural sources rich in citric acid would serve as the best alternative to tri-sodium citrate in the synthesis of Au-NPs and different nanoconjugates for biomedical applications.

Breast cancer on becoming one of the leading cancer types, emerged as an important barrier in increasing life expectancy of the overall population. In the current study, some compounds were screened based on literature survey for the identification of natural bioactive compounds as potential inhibitors of Lyn tyrosine kinase. Therefore, a multi-step molecular docking was carried out using AutoDock embedded in the MGL Tools. After initial screening, molecules having a higher docking score and binding free energy compared to Tamoxifen were considered for further assessment. Some already known synthetic lyn tyrosine kinase inhibitor have been used for better understanding of the comparative study. Based on in silico Lipinski filter analysis, toxicity prediction, pharmacokinetic analysis, four compounds were proposed to be promising inhibitors of Lyn tyrosine kinase. Furthermore, the binding interactions of all proposed inhibitors of Lyn showed strong ligand efficiency in terms of energy score obtained with the help of molecular modelling analyses. Hence, the proposed compounds out of which three are bioactive compounds might be taken forward as potential next-generation Lyn kinase inhibitors for managing Lyn associated breast cancer after experimental authentication.