Identification of phytocompounds from Houttuynia cordata Thunb. as potential inhibitors for SARS-CoV-2 replication proteins through GC–MS/LC–MS characterization,molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a massive viral disease outbreak of international concerns. The present study is mainly intended to identify the bioactive phytocompounds from traditional antiviral herb Houttuynia cordata Thunb. as potential inhibitors for three main replication proteins of SARS-CoV-2, namely Main protease (Mpro), Papain-Like protease (PLpro) and ADP ribose phosphatase (ADRP) which control the replication process. A total of 177 phytocompounds were characterized from H. cordata using GC–MS/LC–MS and they were docked against three SARS-CoV-2 proteins (receptors), namely Mpro, PLpro and ADRP using Epic, LigPrep and Glide module of Schrödinger suite 2020-3. During docking studies, phytocompounds (ligand) 6-Hydroxyondansetron (A104) have demonstrated strong binding affinity toward receptors Mpro (PDB ID 6LU7) and PLpro (PDB ID 7JRN) with G-score of???7.274 and???5.672, respectively, while Quercitrin (A166) also showed strong binding affinity toward ADRP (PDB ID 6W02) with G-score -6.788. Molecular Dynamics Simulation (MDS) performed using Desmond module of Schrödinger suite 2020–3 has demonstrated better stability in the ligand–receptor complexes A104-6LU7 and A166-6W02 within 100 ns than the A104-7JRN complex. The ADME-Tox study performed using SwissADMEserver for pharmacokinetics of the selected phytocompounds 6-Hydroxyondansetron (A104) and Quercitrin (A166) demonstrated that 6-Hydroxyondansetron passes all the required drug discovery rules which can potentially inhibit Mpro and PLpro of SARS-CoV-2 without causing toxicity while Quercitrin demonstrated less drug-like properties but also demonstrated as potential inhibitor for ADRP. Present findings confer opportunities for 6-Hydroxyondansetron and Quercitrin to be developed as new therapeutic drug against COVID-19.

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Synthesis of Small‐Sized,Porous, and Low‐Toxic Magnetite Nanoparticles by Thin POSS Silica Coating

In this communication, we report the synthesis of small‐sized (<10 nm), water‐soluble, magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) coated with polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSS), which contain either polyethylene glycol (PEG) or octa(tetramethylammonium) (OctaTMA) as functional groups. The POSS‐coated MNPs exhibit superparamagnetic behavior with saturation magnetic moments (51–53 emu g^?1) comparable to silica‐coated MNPs. They also provide good colloidal stability at different pH and salt concentrations, and low cytotoxicity to MCF‐7 human breast epithelial cells. The relaxivity data and magnetic resonance (MR) phantom images demonstrate the potential application of these MNPs in bioimaging.     

A New Approach to Develop a Standardized Method for Simultaneous Analysis of Astragaloside IV and Formononetin in Radix Astragali by High-Performance Thin-Layer Chromatography

JPC – Journal of Planar Chromatography – Modern TLC - A new high-performance thin-layer chromatographic (HPTLC) method has been developed for the simultaneous estimation of...     

说说我们的家园——地球的命运

国人大概都知道杞人忧天的故事．相传战国时列御寇所撰《列子》一书中的《天瑞》篇载有“杞国有人，忧天地崩坠，身亡所寄，废寝食者”；唐朝大诗人李白《梁甫吟》一诗中也提到这件事：“白日不照吾精诚，杞国无事忧天倾”；清李汝珍所著《镜花缘》第二十七回也有言：“杞人忧天，伯虑愁眠”．说的都是古时候杞国有个人，老爱瞎操心，明明不用担忧的事情，他也是不放心，特别是害怕天会塌下来，弄得自己无处安身．     

科学和艺术

科学与完美是不是一致的？科学家们是否有权使用完美这个词？至少，对于物理学家和数学家来说答案是肯定的“是”．2002年，温伯格（Steven Weinberg）写道：“近代物理学的一些重要方程式是科学知识的永久部分，甚至比它们较早出现的美丽大教堂还要经久不衰．”1960年代，狄拉克（Paul A．M．Dirac）有句名言：“完整的方程式之完美较之它们适合实验结果更为重要．”1965年诺贝尔物理学奖获得者费因曼（Richard P．Feynman）也坚信他提出的一项理论，即使该理论显得与实验数据有矛盾．1957年，他写道：“理论是优雅和完美的，重大事件是短暂的闪光．”     

Three New Polyoxygenated Steroids from Two Species of the South China Sea Gorgonian Muricella flexuosa and Menella verrucosa Brundin

Three new polyoxygenated steroids, muricesteroid ( 1 ), and menellsteroids A ( 2 ) and B ( 3 ), were isolated from two species of the South China Sea gorgonian Muricella flexuosa and Menella verrucosa Brundin , respectively. The structures of these new compounds were elucidated on the basis of extensive spectroscopic analysis, chemical methods and comparison with known related compounds.     

Orbital Stability of Solitary Waves for Generalized Zakharov System

In the interaction of laser-plasma the system of Zakharov equation plays an important role.This system attracted many scientists' wide interest and attention.And the formation, evolution and interaction of the Langmuir solutions differ from solutions of the KDV equation. Here we consider the following generalized Zakharov system     

Ultrasound imaging and evaluation of lesion induced by High Intensity Focused Ultrasound

The present study was to investigate the differential imaging method for detecting HIFU (High Intensity Focused Ultrasound)-induced lesions and the estimation of variation of attenuation for lesion evaluation with log spectral difference algorithm. Experiment results of bovine muscle and liver in vitro were acquired. Several algorithms for lesion detection - Absolute Difference (AD), Sum Absolute Differences (SAD) and Sum Squared Differences (SSD) - were analyzed with several window sizes and threshold values. Then three attenuation parameters were compared to evaluate the degree of tissue damage. It was found that variation of the mean attenuation △α was an effective parameter to evaluate lesions.