There is a direct correlation between population growth and food demand. As the global population continues to rise, there is a need to scale up food production to meet the food demand of the population. In addition, the arable land over time has lost its naturally endowed nutrients. Hence, alternative measures such as fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides are used to fortify the soil and scale up the production rate. As efforts are being made to meet this food demand and ensure food security, it is equally important to ensure food safety for consumption. Food safety measures need to be put in place throughout the food production chain lines. One of the fundamental measures is the use of biofertilizers or plant growth promoters instead of chemical or synthesized fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides that poise several dangers to human and animal health. Biofertilizers competitively colonize plant root systems, which, in turn, enhance nutrient uptake, increase productivity and crop yield, improve plants’ tolerance to stress and their resistance to pathogens, and improve plant growth through mechanisms such as the mobilization of essential elements, nutrients, and plant growth hormones. Biofertilizers are cost-effective and ecofriendly in nature, and their continuous usage enhances soil fertility. They also increase crop yield by up to about 10–40% by increasing protein contents, essential amino acids, and vitamins, and by nitrogen fixation. This review therefore highlighted different types of biofertilizers and the mechanisms by which they elicit their function to enhance crop yield to meet food demand. In addition, the review also addressed the role of microorganisms in promoting plant growth and the various organisms that are beneficial for enhancing plant growth.

The emergence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in December 2019 has resulted in over 20 million cases and 741,808 deaths globally, affecting more than 200 countries. COVID-19 was declared a pandemic on 11 March 2020 by the World Health Organization. The disease is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). There is limited information on COVID-19, and treatment has so far focused on supportive care and use of repurposed drugs. COVID-19 can be transmitted via person-to-person contact through droplet spread. Some of the recommended precautionary measures to reduce the rate of disease spread include social distancing, good hygiene practices, and avoidance of crowded areas. These measures are effective because the droplets are heavy and can only travel approximately 1 meter in the air, settling quickly on fixed surfaces. Promising strategies to combat SARS-CoV-2 include discovery of therapeutic targets/drugs and vaccines. In this review, we summarize the epidemiology, pathophysiology, and diagnosis of COVID-19. We also address the mechanisms of action of approved repurposed drugs for therapeutic management of the disease.

The mining of heavy metals from the environment leads to an increase in soil pollution, leading to the uptake of heavy metals into plant tissue. The build-up of toxic metals in plant cells often leads to cellular damage and senescence. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to produce plants with improved tolerance to heavy metals for food security, as well as to limit heavy metal uptake for improved food safety purposes. To achieve this goal, our understanding of the signaling mechanisms which regulate toxic heavy metal uptake and tolerance in plants requires extensive improvement. In this review, we summarize recent literature and data on heavy metal toxicity (oral reference doses) and the impact of the metals on food safety and food security. Furthermore, we discuss some of the key events (reception, transduction, and response) in the heavy metal signaling cascades in the cell wall, plasma membrane, and cytoplasm. Our future perspectives provide an outlook of the exciting advances that will shape the plant heavy metal signaling field in the near future.

Alterations in the Checkpoint kinase (CHEK1) gene, its regulation, and the possible clinical outcomes in human solid tumors have not been previously examined. Therefore, the present study was carried out to evaluate the expression of CHEK1 in solid tumors as well as the mechanism by which it can be regulated through non-coding RNAs. The expression of CHEK1 was investigated using Oncomine analysis. cBioPortal, Kaplan–Meier Plotter, and PrognoScan were performed to identify the prognostic roles of this gene in solid tumors. The copy number alteration, mutation, interactive analysis, and visualization of the altered networks were performed by cBioPortal. The molecular binding analysis was carried out by Schrodinger suite, PATCHDOCK, and discovery studio visualizer. The study demonstrated that the CHEK1 gene was differentially expressed in four different cancers, and that reduced CHEK1 mRNA expression is an unfavorable prognostic factor for patients with gastric and colorectal cancer. The molecular docking results showed that the CHEK1 gene can be regulated by microRNAs (miR-195-5p) due to the number of stable hydrogen atoms observed within the distance of 2.0 Å and the favorable amino acids (Ala221, Ile353, Ile365, Ile756, Val797, Val70, Val154, Ile159, Val347, Tyr804, Phe811, Tyr815, and Phe156) identified in the binding pocket of the argonaute protein. Due to the possibility of CHEK1’s involvement in solid tumors, it may potentially be a target for therapeutic intervention in cancer. Further studies into the interaction between CHEK1 and other co-expressed genes may give further insight into other modes of regulation of this gene in cancer patients.

Background Pneumonia ranks as one of the main infectious sources of mortality among kids under 5 years of age, killing 2500 a day; late research has additionally demonstrated that mortality is higher in the elderly. A few biomarkers, which up to this point have been distinguished for its determination lack specificity, as these biomarkers fail to build up a differentiation between pneumonia and other related diseases, for example, pulmonary tuberculosis and Human Immunodeficiency Infection (HIV). There is an inclusive global consensus of an improved comprehension of the utilization of new biomarkers, which are delivered in light of pneumonia infection for precision identification to defeat these previously mentioned constraints. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been demonstrated to be promising remedial specialists against numerous illnesses. This research work sought to identify AMPs as biomarkers for three bacterial pneumonia pathogens such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii using in silico technology. Hidden Markov Models (HMMER) was used to identify putative anti-bacterial pneumonia AMPs against the identified receptor proteins of Streptococcus pneumoniae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Acinetobacter baumannii. The physicochemical parameters of these putative AMPs were computed and their 3-D structures were predicted using I-TASSER. These AMPs were subsequently subjected to docking interaction analysis against the identified bacterial pneumonia pathogen proteins using PATCHDOCK. Results The in silico results showed 18 antibacterial AMPs which were ranked based on their E values with significant physicochemical parameters in conformity with known experimentally validated AMPs. The AMPs also bound the pneumonia receptors of their respective pathogens sensitively at the extracellular regions. Conclusions The propensity of these AMPs to bind pneumonia pathogens proteins justifies that they would be potential applicant biomarkers for the recognizable detection of these bacterial pathogens in a point-of-care POC pneumonia diagnostics. The high sensitivity, accuracy, and specificity of the AMPs likewise justify the utilization of HMMER in the design and discovery of AMPs for disease diagnostics and therapeutics.