A severe acute respiratory syndrome is an unusual type of contagious pneumonia that is caused by SARS coronavirus. At present, the whole world is trying to combat this coronavirus disease and scientific communities are putting rigorous efforts to develop vaccines. However, there are only a few specific medical treatments for SARS‐CoV‐2. Apart from other public health measures taken to prevent this virus, we can boost our immunity with natural products. In this article, we have highlighted the potential of common spices and herbs as antiviral agents and immunity boosters. A questionnaire‐based online survey has been conducted on home remedies during COVID‐19 among a wide range of peoples (n‐531) of different age groups (13–68 years) from various countries. According to the survey, 71.8% of people are taking kadha for combating infection and boosting immunity. Most people (86.1%) think that there is no side effect of kadha while 13.9% think vice versa. A total of 93.6% of people think that spices are helpful in curing coronavirus or other viral infection as well as boosting immunity. Most people are using tulsi drops, vitamin C, and chyawanprash for boosting their immunity. Therefore, we conclude from the survey and available literature that spices and herbs play a significant role against viral infections.

Mosquito salivary glands are well known to facilitate meal acquisition, however the fundamental question on how adult female salivary gland manages molecular responses during sugar versus blood meal uptake remains unanswered. To investigate these responses, we analyzed a total of 58.5 million raw reads generated from two independent RNAseq libraries of the salivary glands collected from 3–4 day-old sugar and blood fed Anopheles culicifacies mosquitoes. Comprehensive functional annotation analysis of 10,931 contigs unraveled that salivary glands may encode diverse nature of proteins in response to distinct physiological feeding status. Digital gene expression analysis and PCR validation indicated that first blood meal significantly alters the molecular architecture of the salivary glands. Comparative microscopic analysis also revealed that first blood meal uptake not only causes an alteration of at least 12–22% of morphological features of the salivary glands but also results in cellular changes e.g. apoptosis, confirming together that adult female salivary glands are specialized organs to manage meal specific responses. Unraveling the underlying mechanism of mosquito salivary gene expression, controlling dual feeding associated responses may provide a new opportunity to control vector borne diseases.

Summary Mitogen‐activated protein kinases (MAPKs) play a key role in complex cellular processes such as proliferation, development, differentiation, transformation and apoptosis. Mammals express at least four distinctly regulated groups of MAPKs which include extracellular signal‐related kinases (ERK)‐1/2, p38 proteins, Jun amino‐terminal kinases (JNK1/2/3) and ERK5. p38 MAPK is activated by a wide range of cellular stresses and modulates activity of several downstream kinases and transcription factors which are involved in regulating cytoskeleton remodeling, cell cycle modulation, inflammation, antiviral response and apoptosis. In viral infections, activation of cell signalling pathways is part of the cellular defense mechanism with the basic aim of inducing an antiviral state. However, viruses can exploit enhanced cell signalling activities to support various stages of their replication cycles. Kinase activity can be inhibited by small molecule chemical inhibitors, so one strategy to develop antiviral drugs is to target these cellular signalling pathways. In this review, we provide an overview on the current understanding of various cellular and viral events regulated by the p38 signalling pathway, with a special emphasis on targeting these events for antiviral drug development which might identify candidates with broad spectrum activity.

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Host-dependency factors have increasingly been targeted to minimize antiviral drug resistance. In this study, we have demonstrated that inhibition of p38 mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK, a cellular protein) suppresses buffalopox virus (BPXV) protein synthesis by targeting p38-MNK1-eIF4E signaling pathway. In order to provide insights into the evolution of drug resistance, we selected resistant mutants by long-term sequential passages (P; n = 60) in the presence of p38 inhibitor (SB239063). The P60-SB239063 virus exhibited significant resistance to SB239063 as compared to the P60-Control virus. To provide mechanistic insights on the acquisition of resistance by BPXV-P60-SB239063, we generated p38-α and p38-ϒ (isoforms of p38) knockout Vero cells by CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing. It was demonstrated that unlike the WT virus which is dependent on p38-α isoform, the resistant virus (BPXV-P60-SB239063) switches over to use p38-ϒ so as to efficiently replicate in the target cells. This is a rare evidence wherein a virus was shown to bypass the dependency on a critical cellular factor under selective pressure of a drug.

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