Peptide therapeutics are found to be an emerging and attractive class of treatment due to their highly specific and safe nature. Hence twenty plant peptides were subjected to screening by molecular docking against the envelope protein of the dengue virus using Clus Pro, Patch Dock, and HADDOCK servers. Physicochemical parameters, allergenicity, and toxicity profile of the plant peptides were estimated by Protparam analysis, AllergenFP, and ToxinPred web servers. Six potential compounds namely Ginkbilobin, Cycloviolin-D, Circulin-B, Circulin-A, Cycloviolacin-013, and Circulin-C showed the highest binding energy with both nonallergenic and nontoxic properties. They also exhibited desirable half-lives extending to 30 hrs except for Ginkbilobin, which showed the least half-life of 4.4 hours and non-polar activity. The residues of Ala-4 of Ginkbilobin; Arg-30 of Cycloviolin D; Arg-29 of Circulin A and C interacted with the Try 101 of the domain II of Envelope protein, implying the possible inhibition of the insertion process of the trimeric E protein during fusion with the host cells. Thus, the identified plant peptides could serve as potential leads upon further subjection to in vitro studies.

Pectin lyase finds applications in the degumming and retting of plant fibers where it degrades highly methylesterified pectin without prior action of any other pectinase. Response surface methodology (RSM) has been frequently utilized for the optimization of production process of industrially important enzymes from microbes. In the present work, fermentation conditions for the production of pectin lyase from Bacillus cereus were optimized using the factorial and central composite design of RSM. The cubic order polynomial regression model was found to be adequate and significant with a determination coefficient R 2 of 0.9505 (p<0.0001). The ANOVA analysis and three dimensional surface plots confirmed interaction among variables. The optimum values of variables were found to be pectin 4% (w/v), sodium carbonate 1% (w/v), manganese sulfate 0.055% (w/v) and magnesium sulfate 0.018% (w/v) at 150 rpm under response surface curves. After optimization, the experimental value of maximum activity of enzyme (3.37 U/ml) was found higher but close to the predicted value (2.68 U/ml) and the enzyme activity increased by 1.32 fold (32.16%).

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Essential oils are widely used in the treatment of skin disease. They are also important as a flavouring agent in the food industry. Clove essential oil is used traditionally as flavouring agent and antimicrobial material in food. Neem oil is beneficial to the skin. The study was done on antibacterial and antifungal activities of extracted and readymade essential oils of clove spice and Neem herb. The further study of total phenolic content of essential oils. The essential oils of spice and herb showed antibacterial and antifungal activities which were tested against Gram negative bacteria such as Escherichia coli(ATCC 9961), Proteus vulgaris(ATCC 25933), Salmonella typhi(ATCC 23564), Pseudomonas aeruginosa(ATCC 19154), Gram positive bacteria Staphylococcus aureus(ATCC 6538) and filamentous fungi Aspergillus niger(ATCC 934), Mucor sp.(ATCC 1279), Penicillium sp.(ATCC 28682). Agar well diffusion assay was performed to study the antibacterial and antifungal activities of essential oils. Total phenolic content of essential oils was measured by Folin-Ciocalteu method. Highest antibacterial activity of clove oil observed at 100µl concentration, gave 19 mm zone of inhibition against Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Highest antifungal activity of clove oil observed at 100µl concentration, gave 31 mm against Aspergillus niger and Penicillium sp. And also found that clove essential oil have 23.44 mg/g highest phenolic compound. Phenolic compound is most important compound which is responsible for antibacterial and antifungal activities. The study reported important and comparison of spice and herb essential oils and their used as antibacterial and antifungal agent in pharmaceutical and food industry.