The present study evaluated the hypoglycemic activity of Aloe extract on streptozotocin-induced diabetic mice and focuses its effect on GLUT-4 gene expression under in vitro cell-culture system. Administration of extract at the dosage of 130 mg/kg body weight per day for 4 weeks resulted in significant decrease in blood glucose and total cholesterol in streptozotocin (60 mg/kg body weight) induced diabetic mice. The hypoglycemic effect was compared with metformin. The activities of carbohydrate metabolizing enzymes were brought back to near normal level after the treatment and glucose homeostasis was maintained. Lyophilized aqueous Aloe extract (1 mg/ml) upregulated the GLUT-4 mRNA synthesis in mouse embryonic NIH/3T3 cells.

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The genome of rabies virus encodes five proteins; the nucleoprotein, the phosphoprotein, the matrix protein, the glycoprotein, and the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. Among these, the glycoprotein is the most important as it is the major contributor to pathogenicity and virus neutralizing antibody response. Keeping in mind that glycoprotein is the only protein exposed on the surface of virus and is thought to be responsible for the interaction with the cell membrane, it was attempted to target glycoprotein by a ligand polyethylene glycol 4000, which blocks its active site, as seen by molecular operating environment software, so that it may be possible to prevent the spread of virus into the host. The ligand polyethylene glycol 4000 was retrieved from Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics protein data bank by providing the glycoprotein sequence to the databank. In this study it was observed that the ligand was successfully docked on a major portion of antigenic site II of glycoprotein by mimicking the virus neutralizing antibodies. This knowledge may be important for the development of novel therapies for the treatment of rabies and other viral diseases in the future.

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