The progress in industrialization has blessed mankind with a technologically superior lifestyle but poor management of industrial waste has in turn poisoned nature. One such chemical is carbon tetra chloride (CCl4), which is a potent environmental toxin emitted from chemical industries and its presence in the atmosphere is increasing at an alarming rate. Presence of CCl4 in human body is reported to cause liver damage through free radical mediated inflammatory processes. Kupffer cells present in the liver are potentially more sensitive to oxidative stress than hepatocytes. Kuffer cells produced tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) in response to reactive oxygen species (ROS), that might further cause inflammation or apoptosis. In this study hepatoprotective capacity of antioxidant rich extract of Croton bonplandianus Baill. (CBL) was evaluated on CCl4 induced acute hepatotoxicity in murine model. Hydro-methanolic extract of C. bonplandianus leaf was used for evaluation of free radical scavenging activity. Liver cells of experimental mice were damaged using CCl4 and subsequently hepatoprotective potential of the plant extract was evaluated using series of in-vivo and in-vitro studies. In the hepatoprotective study, silymarin was used as a positive control. Antioxidant enzymes, pro-inflammatory markers, liver enzymatic and biochemical parameters were studied to evaluate hepatoprotective activity of Croton bonplandianus leaf extract. Free radical scavenging activity of CBL extract was also observed in WRL-68 cell line. The phytochemicals identified by GCMS analysis were scrutinized using in-silico molecular docking procedure. The results showed that CBL extract have potent free radical scavenging capacity. The biochemical parameters were over expressed due to CCl4 administration, which were significantly normalized by CBL extract treatment. This finding was also supported by histopathological evidences showing less hepatocellularnecrosis, inflammation and fibrosis in CBL and silymarin treated group, compared to CCl4 group. ROS generated due to H2O2 in WRL-68 cell line were normalize in the highest group (200 μg/ml) when compared with control and negative control (CCl4) group. After molecular docking analysis, it was observed that the compound α-amyrin present in the leaf extract of C. bonplandianus has better potentiality to protect hepatocellular damages than the standard drug Silymarin. The present study provided supportive evidence that CBL extract possesses potent hepatoprotective capacity by ameliorating haloalkane induced liver injury in the murine model. The antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities also affirm the same. The synergistic effects of the phytochemicals present in CBL are to be credited for all the hepatoprotective activity claimed above.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has rattled global public health, with researchers struggling to find specific therapeutic solutions. In this context, the present study employed an in silico approach to assess the inhibitory potential of the phytochemicals obtained from GC-MS analysis of twelve Clerodendrum species against the imperative spike protein, main protease enzyme M pro and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) of SARS-CoV-2. An extensive molecular docking investigation of the phytocompounds at the active binding pockets of the viral proteins revealed promising inhibitory potential of the phytochemicals taraxerol, friedelin and stigmasterol. Decent physicochemical attributes of the compounds in accordance with Lipinski's rule of five and Veber's rule further established them as potential therapeutic candidates against SARS-CoV-2. Molecular mechanics-generalized Born surface area (MM-GBSA) binding free energy estimation revealed that taraxerol was the most promising candidate displaying the highest binding efficacy with all the concerned SARS-CoV-2 proteins included in the present analysis. Our observations were supported by robust molecular dynamics simulations of the complexes of the viral proteins with taraxerol for a timescale of 40 nanoseconds. It was striking to note that taraxerol exhibited better binding energy scores with the concerned viral proteins than the drugs that are specifically targeted against them. The present results promise to provide new avenues to further evaluate the potential of the phytocompound taraxerol in vitro and in vivo towards its successful deployment as a SARS-CoV-2 inhibitor and combat the catastrophic COVID-19.

A novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has emerged as the causative agent behind the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Treatment efforts have been severely impeded due to the lack of specific effective antiviral drugs for the treatment of COVID-associated pathologies. In the present research endeavour the inhibitory prospects of cyanobacterial metabolites were assessed at the active binding pockets of the two vital SARS-CoV-2 proteases namely, main protease (M pro) and the papain-like protease (PL pro) that proteolytically process viral polyproteins and facilitate viral replication, employing an in silico molecular interaction-based approach. It was evident from our analysis based on the binding energy scores that the metabolites cylindrospermopsin, deoxycylindrospermopsin, carrageenan, cryptophycin 52, eucapsitrione, tjipanazole, tolyporphin and apratoxin A exhibited promising inhibitory potential against the SARS-CoV-2 M pro. The compounds cryptophycin 1, cryptophycin 52 and deoxycylindrospermopsin were observed to display encouraging binding energy scores with the PL pro of SARS-CoV-2. Subsequent estimation of physicochemical properties and potential toxicity of the metabolites followed by robust molecular dynamics simulations and analysis of MM-PBSA energy scoring function established deoxycylindrospermopsin as the most promising inhibitory candidate against both SARS-CoV-2 proteases. Present research findings bestow ample scopes to further exploit the potential of deoxycylindrospermopsin as a successful inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro and in vivo and pave the foundation for the development of novel effective therapeutics against COVID-19.

Hippophae salicifolia, Elaeagnus pyriformis, Myrica esculenta and M. nagi are actinorhizal plants growing in the sacred forests of Northeast India with multipurpose uses. The present investigation was undertaken to determine the phenol, flavonoid and flavonol contents of the fresh fruit juice of these plant species including the antioxidant potential by means of DPPH, H2O2 and NO scavenging activity and FRP. The total phenolic, flavonoid and flavonol contents of fruit juice ranged from 321.68+/-0.06 to 76.67+/-0.01 mg/g GAE, 272.92+/-0.07 to 20.12+/-0.02 mg/g QE and 258.92+/-0.08 to 18.72+/-0.02 mg/g QE, respectively. At 2.0 mg/mL concentration, DPPH scavenging activity was found to be the highest in M. esculenta (89.62 percent) and the lowest in E. pyriformis (17.58 percent). The reducing power activity was found significantly higher in H. salicifolia juice, which increased with increase in concentration. The H2O2 scavenging activity of H. salicifolia juice was found to be as high as 98.78 percent, while Elaeagnus juice was found to be less effective with just 48.90 percent. Juice of H. salicifolia showed the greatest NO scavenging effect of 75.24 percent as compared to juice of E. pyriformis, where only 37.54 percent scavenging was observed at the same concentration. Taking into account all the experimental data, it can be said that the fruits of H. salicifolia and both M. nagi and M. esculenta have good antioxidant activity compared to fruits of E. pyriformis.

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