Special Issues

Natural Products and Traditional Remedies: Current Potential Therapeutic Strategies
Editor: Mokrish Ajat

Submission Deadline: 1 March 2024 (Status: Open)


Special Issue Editor


Dr. Mokrish Ajat      Email   |   Website
(1) Natural Medicine & Product Research Laboratory (NaturMeds), Institute of Bioscience, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
(2) Department of Veterinary Preclinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

Interests: metabolic diseases; natural products; herbal plants; proteomics; lipidomics; metabolomics; mammalian cell culture


Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

For the past decade, extent research about the potential use of natural products and traditional remedies to cure illnesses or act as a supplement to promote health has emerged. Technology advancements to better understand the mechanism of these extracted products in vitro and in vivo provides an opportunity for pharmaceutical companies to further explore these compounds and improve healthcare. This special issue will focus on natural products derived from herbal plants or traditional remedies, such as traditional Chinese medicine, that have therapeutic properties for metabolic diseases and communicable diseases. These compounds have been reported to be used either on humans or animals. We welcome researchers from various fields such as metabolomics, proteomics, lipidomics, genomics, molecular biologist, chemist, biochemist, nutritionist, microbiologist, pharmacologist, pathologist, veterinarians, virologist, and bacteriologist to report their findings for this special issue. Original research on the field of therapeutic strategies of natural products and traditional remedies will be accepted.

Mokrish Ajat
Guest Editor


Keywords

natural products; traditional remedies; traditional medicine; homeopathy; alternative medicine; metabolomics; genomics; proteomics; metabolic disease; herbal plant


Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted via our online editorial system at https://www.biolifesas.org/journalx_brha/authorLogOn.action by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to start your submission. Manuscripts can be submitted now or up until the deadline. All papers will go through peer-review process. Accepted papers will be published in the journal (as soon as accepted) and meanwhile listed together on the special issue website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts will be thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. Please visit the Instruction for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted manuscripts should be well formatted in good English.


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  • Article
    Hossam Kamli, Mehedi Hasan Bappi, Tawhida Islam, Rajib Hossain, MD Munnaf Hossen, Abdullah Al Faruq, João Arthur de Oliveira Borges, Isaac Moura Araújo, Ray Silva de Almeida, Henrique Douglas Melo Coutinho, Catarina Martins Tahim, Elaine Cristina Pereira Lucetti, Muhammad Torequl Islam
    Journal of Biological Regulators and Homeostatic Agents. 2023, 37(9): 5035-5052. https://doi.org/10.23812/j.biol.regul.homeost.agents.20233709.489
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    Background: Urena sinuata L. is a shrubby wild plant used for centuries in folk medicine to treat bronchitis, rheumatism, fever, and waist pain. It is evident that it possesses antioxidant, anti-diarrheal, anti-atherothrombotic, sedative, anxiolytic, and analgesic effects in various test systems.

    Objectives: The goal of this research was to evaluate the anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anxiolytic activity along with the preliminary phytochemical investigation of the ethanolic leaf extract of U. sinuata (ELEUS). Additionally, we also performed an in silico study to see the possible anxiolytic effects of its previously reported phytochemicals.

    Methods: Scavenging methods for nitric oxide (NO), 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), and hydroxyl radical (OH) were used to determine antioxidant activity. The egg albumin model was used to assess anti-inflammatory action, while the elevated plus maze tested anxiolytic activity in adult male Swiss albino mice. For the latter case, the control group received vehicle (10 mL/kg), the standard group received diazepam (DZP: 2 mg/kg), and the test groups received ELEUS at 200 and 400 mg/kg. Additionally, both the test groups were combined with DZP 2 mg/kg. All these treatments were given via oral gavage. Finally, we performed an in silico study to check the possible interactions of its literature-claimed compounds with gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)A receptor subunits.

    Results: Findings suggest that the ELEUS exhibited significant (p < 0.05) concentration-dependent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. The highest activity was observed at 100 μg/mL. In mice, the extract had an anxiolytic effect that was significant (p < 0.05) and was dose-dependent. ELEUS 200 and 400 mg/kg were seen to potentiate the anxiolytic activity of the standard drug DZP (2 mg/kg) significantly (p < 0.05). Quercetagetin-6,7-O-dimethylether-3′-β-D-gluco-pyranoside, querceta-getin-6,7-O-dimethylether-4′-β-D glucopyranoside, and quercetagetin-6,7-O-dimethylether-3-β-D-glucopyranosid of U. sinuata showed better interaction capacity with the GABAA receptor protein (α1, α2, α3, α4, α5, and α6) than the standard drug (diazepam).

    Conclusions: ELEUS possesses many important phytochemical groups and exhibits concentration-dependent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects as well as dose-dependent anxiolytic effects. U. sinuata may be a good source of plant-based therapeutically active lead compounds for inflammation, oxidative stress, neurological diseases, and disorders like anxiety.

  • Article
    Aarif Ali, Bashir Ahmad Malla, Nouroz Sehar, Sheikh Bilal Ahmad, Zuha Imtiyaz, Azher Arafah, Muneeb U Rehman, Ahmed Nadeem
    Journal of Biological Regulators and Homeostatic Agents. 2023, 37(9): 4555-4569. https://doi.org/10.23812/j.biol.regul.homeost.agents.20233709.445
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    Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most complex neurodegenerative disorder associated with the loss of dopaminergic neurons and has an unknown etiology. Several pathogenic mechanisms including inflammation, oxidative stress, protein dysfunction, apoptosis, mitochondrial dysfunction, abnormal α-synuclein, and autophagy are associated with this disorder. The current existing medications show limited efficacy and adverse health effects. Hence, in such a scenario, phytocompounds can provide an alternate way of effective treatment by repurposing these natural molecules using computational based approaches.

    Methods: In this study, we explored various plant bioactives as possible inhibitors against the Parkin gene using in silico approaches. In the present study, the absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity (ADMET) properties of the bioactives were determined via predicting small-molecule pharmacokinetic properties (pkCSM). Moreover, the evaluation of molecular docking, dynamics, binding pockets, and protein-protein interactions of the protein was determined via AutoDock Vina, WEBnm@, Computed Atlas of Surface Topography of Proteins (CASTp), and Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins (STRING).

    Results: The findings obtained from molecular docking analysis revealed that Cytochalasin E was the most effective bioactive compound that showed the highest binding affinity of –8.6 kcal/mol when docked against the selected protein. In this study, all the bioactives followed Lipinski's rule of five except Sitoindoside IX. The CASTp tool identified the binding pockets in the protein with the top binding site having an accessible surface (AS) area of 250.39 Å2 and an accessible surface (AS) volume of 203.03 Å3 respectively. STRING tool determined the protein-protein interactions by visualizing protein structure.

    Conclusion: The findings obtained from this study suggest that Cytochalasin E could be repurposed as a potential inhibitor targeting Parkin and these outcomes may prove significant in the process of drug designing. However, further in vitro and in vivo studies are required to validate these results.