bIn the light of multidrug resistance (MDR) among pathogenic microbes and cancer cells, membrane transporters have gained profound clinical significance. Chemotherapeutic failure, by far, has been attributed mainly to the robust and diverse array of these proteins, which are omnipresent in every stratum of the living world. Candida albicans, one of the major fungal pathogens affecting immunocompromised patients, also develops MDR during the course of chemotherapy. The pivotal membrane transporters that C. albicans has exploited as one of the strategies to develop MDR belongs to either the ATP binding cassette (ABC) or the major facilitator superfamily (MFS) class of proteins. The ABC transporter Candida drug resistance 1 protein (Cdr1p) is a major player among these transporters that enables the pathogen to outplay the battery of antifungals encountered by it. The promiscuous Cdr1 protein fulfills the quintessential need of a model to study molecular mechanisms of multidrug transporter regulation and structure-function analyses of asymmetric ABC transporters. In this review, we cover the highlights of two decades of research on Cdr1p that has provided a platform to study its structure-function relationships and regulatory circuitry for a better understanding of MDR not only in yeast but also in other organisms.

The rapid development of the SARS-CoV-2 mediated COVID-19 pandemic has been the cause of significant health concern, highlighting the immediate need for effective antivirals. SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus that has an inherently high mutation rate. These mutations drive viral evolution and genome variability, thereby facilitating viruses to have rapid antigenic shifting to evade host immunity and to develop drug resistance. Viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RdRp) perform viral genome duplication and RNA synthesis. Therefore, we compared the available RdRp sequences of SARS-CoV-2 from Indian isolates and the ‘Wuhan wet sea food market virus’ sequence to identify, if any, variation between them. Our data revealed the occurrence of seven mutations in Indian isolates of SARS-CoV-2. The secondary structure prediction analysis of these seven mutations shows that three of them cause alteration in the structure of RdRp. Furthermore, we did protein modelling studies to show that these mutations can potentially alter the stability of the RdRp protein. Therefore, we propose that RdRp mutations in Indian SARS-CoV-2 isolates might have functional consequences that can interfere with RdRp targeting pharmacological agents.

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Abstract-One-dimensional ternary photonic crystals are suggested as refractometric sensing elements, for sensing very small refractive index changes of a medium.These one-dimensional ternary photonic crystals based refractometric sensing elements are not only remarkably smaller, but are also more sensitive than one-dimensional binary photonic crystal based sensing element recently suggested by researchers.

Abstract-This paper demonstrates a novel way to enhance the temperature sensitivity in one-dimensional (1D) photonic band gap (PBG) material by using a ternary periodic structure (i.e., three material layers constituting a period of lattice). The temperature sensitive wavelength band shift of (Si/SiO 2 ) periodic structure was significantly enhanced when the structure was modified by sandwiching a thin layer of Bi 4 Ge 3 O 12 between every two layers, constituting a period of lattice. When the thickness of sandwiched layer was increased further enhancement in temperature sensitivity was observed. These 1D ternary PBG structures can be substituted in place of 1D binary PBG structures for enhancing the temperature sensing performance.

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