Momordica dioica is a perennial, dioecious, cucurbitaceous climbing creeper (commonly known as kakrol, spiny gourd or teasle gourd). It is native to Asia with extensive distribution in India and Bangladesh. It is used not only as preventive and curative agent for various diseases but also as vegetable with a significant nutritional value over thousands of years. This review aims to take an attempt to evaluate the phytochemical, ethnobotanical, phytotherapeutical and pharmacological properties of kakrol according to the view of traditional medicinal plant based treatment including ayurveda along with recent scientific observations. Kakrol is considered as an underutilized vegetable, although having significant presence of certain compounds containing higher nutritional value than many frequently consumed vegetables. Moreover, as a traditional medicinal plant, it is still potential for its phytochemical components that increase the demand of further extensive evaluation to justify its other therapeutical roles. Therefore, this effort will be helpful to researchers who interested to disclose the unjustified phytotherapeutical role of Momordica dioica.

SummarySARS-CoV-2 has become a major problem across the globe, with approximately 50 million cases and more than 1 million deaths and currently no approved treatment or vaccine. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the underlying conditions in adults of any age that place them at risk for developing severe illness associated with COVID-19. We established an airway epithelium model to study SARS-CoV-2 infection in healthy and COPD lung cells. We found that both the entry receptor ACE2 and the co-factor transmembrane protease TMPRSS2 are expressed at higher levels on nonciliated goblet cell, a novel target for SARS-CoV-2 infection. We observed that SARS-CoV-2 infected goblet cells and induced syncytium formation and cell sloughing. We also found that SARS-CoV-2 replication was increased in the COPD airway epithelium likely due to COPD associated goblet cell hyperplasia. Our results reveal goblet cells play a critical role in SARS-CoV-2 infection in the lung.

SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19’s first case was discovered in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and by March 2020 it was declared a pandemic by the WHO. It has been shown that various underlying conditions can increase the chance of having severe COVID-19.

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Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading viral agent causing bronchiolitis and pneumonia in children under five years old worldwide. The RSV infection cycle starts with macropinocytosis-based entry into the host airway epithelial cell membrane, followed by virus transcription, replication, assembly, budding, and spread. It is not surprising that the host actin cytoskeleton contributes to different stages of the RSV replication cycle. RSV modulates actin-related protein 2/3 (ARP2/3) complex-driven actin polymerization for a robust filopodia induction on the infected lung epithelial A549 cells, which contributes to the virus’s budding, and cell-to-cell spread. Thus, a comprehensive understanding of RSV-induced cytoskeletal modulation and its role in lung pathobiology may identify novel intervention strategies. This review will focus on the role of the ARP2/3 complex in RSV’s pathogenesis and possible therapeutic targets to the ARP2/3 complex for RSV.