AI can be harnessed for forecasting the spread of virus and developing early warning systems by extracting information from social media platforms, calls and news sites and provide useful information about the vulnerable regions and for prediction of morbidity and mortality "

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Quantitative Structure -Activity Relationship (QSAR) studies were carried out on a set of 46 imidazo[1,2-a]pyridines, imidazo[1,2-b]pyridazines and 2,4-bis anilino pyrimidines, and nitroso-6-aminopyrimidine and 2,6-diaminopyrimidine inhibitors of CDK2 (Cyclin-dependent Kinase2) using a multiple regression procedure. The activity contributions of these compounds were determined from regression equation and the validation procedures such as external set cross-validation r 2 , (R 2 cv,ext ) and the regression of observed activities against predicted activities and vice versa for validation set were described to analyze the predictive ability of the QSAR model. An accurate and reliable QSAR model involving five descriptors was chosen based on the FIT Kubinyi function which defines the statistical quality of the model. The proposed model due to its high predictive ability was utilized to screen similar repertoire of compounds reported in the literature, and the biological activities are estimated. The screening study clearly demonstrated that the strategy presented shall be used as an alternative to the time-consuming experiments as the model tolerated a variety of structural modifications signifying its potential for drug design studies.

Transformation of commercially important indica cultivars remains challenging for the scientific community even though Agrobacterium-mediated transformation protocols for a few indica rice lines have been well established. We report successful transformation of a commercially important restorer line JK1044R of indica rice hybrid JKRH 401. While following existing protocol, we optimized several parameters for callusing, regeneration and genetic transformation of JK1044R. Calli generated from the rice scutellum tissue were used for transformation by Agrobacterium harboring pCAMBIA2201. A novel two tire selection scheme comprising of Geneticin (G418) and Paramomycin were deployed for selection of transgenic calli as well as regenerated plantlets that expressed neomycin phosphotransferase-II gene encoded by the vector. One specific combination of G418 (30 mg l −1 ) and Paramomycin (70 mg l −1 ) was very effective for calli selection. Transformed and selected calli were detected by monitoring the expression of the reporter gene uidA (GUS). Regenerated plantlets were confirmed through PCR analysis of nptII and gus genes specific primers as well as dot blot using gus gene specific as probe.

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Cell cycle progresses by the activation of cyclin and cdk complexes. They act as check points and regulate the transition of cell cycle from one phase to another. Cdk2 inhibitors decrease the kinase activities by blocking the transition from G1 to S phases. In this article, we present a review on purine based cdk2 inhibitors. The review covers in great detail the different structures and the effects on cdk2 inhibition by various substitutions. The substitutions that most greatly influence the orientation and binding towards the ATP binding site are discussed and the effects of several substituents that explored the active site region of cdk2 with bound inhibitor has provided a rationale to review four relatively new families of purine based cdk2 inhibitors such as imidazo[1,2-a]pyridines, imidazo[1,2-b]pyridazines, 1H-pyrazolo [3,4-b]pyridines and O 6 -substituted guanines, respectively. The orientation and hydrogen bond interactions of analogues with Leu83, Asp86 and Lys33 residues influence the binding and the major features responsible for effective cdk2 inhibitor discovery and design are presented.

CDK2 (Cyclin Dependent Kinase 2) acts as a potential therapeutic target in cancer and several efforts have been made to find more specific, potent and selective ATP competitive CDK2 inhibitors. In this paper, we report a virtual screening approach that resulted in 54,558 Lipinski compliant hits from ZINC database based on the features exhibited by four compounds from our previous study. Docking and scoring of all compounds using GOLD (Genetic Optimisation for Ligand Docking) software, to evaluate the affinity of binding towards CDK2 enzyme 2UZO resulted in dock scores between 41.71 -82.33 kcal/mol. The resultant dataset of 392 hits were filtered based on the specificity between CDK2 and GSK-3 (Glycogen Synthase Kinase-3) to obtain 17 compounds that are more specific towards CDK2. Further, re-scoring of 17 best docked poses followed by a consensus scoring approach tested with five different scoring functions such as GOLD score, CHEM score implemented in GOLD 3.1, eHiTS_score (electronic High Throughput Screening), MolDock score of Molegro software and X-Score retrieved top hits. Finally, the top ten compounds were examined for anti-proliferative effects against human lung adenocarcinoma epithelial cell line, A549 using MTT assay.