http://nopr.niscair.res.in/handle/123456789/11594 Search the Channel search http://nopr.niscair.res.in/simple-search http://nopr.niscair.res.in/handle/123456789/11615 Title: Cold-induced sweetening development in Indian potato (<i style="">Solanum tuberosum</i> L.) varieties <br/> <br/>Authors: Kumar, Dinesh <br/> <br/>Abstract: Developing cold sweetening resistant processing varieties is one of the frontal areas of research all over the world. In India, first potato processing variety was released in the year 1998 and till 2005 three varieties have been developed. But, there is no information available regarding sugar accumulation response of Indian varieties to low temperature storage. Therefore, it is imperative to generate basic information on cold sweetening development in Indian processing varieties for the use of potato breeders. Development of cold-induced sweetening and its relation to phenolic content of the tuber was studied in three Indian potato varieties <i style="">viz</i>., Kufri Chipsona-1, Kufri Chipsona-3 and Kufri Jyoti. The reducing sugars decreased in initial phase of storage, followed by continuous increase to unacceptably higher levels after around two weeks of storage. The increase in reducing sugar contents took place subsequent to increase in sucrose content. The changes in phenol content were not in a fixed trend. The degree or number of folds increase in reducing sugar content was relatively less in Kufri Jyoti which contained highest phenol content among the three varieties investigated. It is suggested that development of processing varieties with higher anti-oxidant content and lower invertase activity may provide better cold-induced sweetening resistance. <br/> <br/>Page(s): 123-127 http://nopr.niscair.res.in/handle/123456789/11614 Title: Development and validation of a robust QSAR model for prediction of carcinogenicity of drugs <br/> <br/>Authors: Kar, Supratik; Roy, Kunal <br/> <br/>Abstract: Carcinogenicity is one of the toxicological endpoints causing the highest concern. Also, the standard bioassays in rodents used to assess the carcinogenic potential of chemicals and drugs are extremely long, costly and require the sacrifice of large numbers of animals. For these reasons, we have attempted development of a global quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) model using a data set of 1464 compounds (the Galvez data set available from http://www.uv.es/~galvez/tablevi.pdf), including many marketed drugs for their carcinogenesis potential. Though experimental toxicity testing using animal models is unavoidable for new drug candidates at an advanced stage of drug development, yet the developed global QSAR model can<i> in silico</i> predict the carcinogenicity of new drug compounds to provide a tool for initial screening of new drug candidate molecules with reduced number of animal testing, money and time. Considering large number of data points with diverse structural features used for model development (n_training = 732) and model validation (n_test = 732), the model developed in this study has an encouraging statistical quality (leave-one-out Q² = 0.731, R²pred = 0.716). Our developed model suggests that higher lipophilicity values and <span style="color: rgb(35, 31, 32);">conjugated ring systems, thioketo and nitro groups contribute positively towards drug carcinogenicity. On the contrary, <span style="color: rgb(35, 31, 32);">tertiary and secondary nitrogens, phenolic, enolic and carboxylic OH fragments and presence of three-membered rings reduce the carcinogenicity. Branching, size and shape are found to be crucial factors for drug-induced carcinogenicity. One may consider all these points to reduce carcinogenic potential of the molecules. </span></span> <br/> <br/>Page(s): 111-122 http://nopr.niscair.res.in/handle/123456789/11613 Title: MAPS: An interactive web server for membrane annotation of transmembrane protein structures <br/> <br/>Authors: Cheema, Jitender; Basu, Gautam <br/> <br/>Abstract: The exact positioning of the membrane in transmembrane (TM) proteins plays important functional roles. Yet, the structures of TM proteins in protein data bank (pdb) have no information about the explicit position of the membrane. Using a simple hydrophobic lipid-protein mismatch energy function and a flexible lipid/water boundary, the position of lipid bilayer for representative TM proteins in pdb have been annotated. A web server called MAPS (Membrane Annotation of Protein Structures; available at: http://www.boseinst.ernet.in/gautam/maps) has been set up that allows the user to interactively analyze membrane-protein orientations of any uploaded pdb structure with user-defined membrane flexibility parameters. <br/> <br/>Page(s): 106-110 http://nopr.niscair.res.in/handle/123456789/11612 Title: A molecular docking study of anticancer drug paclitaxel and its analogues <br/> <br/>Authors: Sinha, Ruma; Vidyarthi, Ambarish Sharan; Shankaracharya <br/> <br/>Abstract: Present study was aimed at finding a better alternative to paclitaxel, an anticancer chemotherapeutic drug. Two targets, tubulin <img src='/image/spc_char/beta.gif' border=0>-1 chain and apoptosis regulator Bcl-2 protein (2O2F) were used in the study. Of these, structure of tubulin <img src='/image/spc_char/beta.gif' border=0>-1 chain is not known and that of Bcl-2 was taken from protein data bank with ID 2O2F. Tertiary structure model of tubulin <img src='/image/spc_char/beta.gif' border=0>-1 chain was predicted and validated. The validated 3D structure of tubulin <img src='/image/spc_char/beta.gif' border=0>-1 chain and Bcl-2 protein was taken to study their interaction with paclitaxel. Molecular docking of paclitaxel and its analogues was performed with these targets separately. Results showed that out of 84 analogues taken from PubChem, CID_44322802 had glide score of -9.62, as compared to -5.86 of paclitaxel with tubulin <img src='/image/spc_char/beta.gif' border=0>-1 chain. It was also observed that CID_ 9919057 had glide score of -9.0, as compared to -8.24 of paclitaxel with Bcl-2 protein. However, further experimental and clinical verification is needed to establish these analogues as drug. <br/> <br/>Page(s): 101-105