biological reference material herbal barcode library.
SummaryThe past couple of decades have witnessed global resurgence of herbal-based health care. As a result, the trade of raw drugs has surged globally. Accurate and fast scientific identification of the plant(s) is the key to success for the herbal drug industry. The conventional approach is to engage an expert taxonomist, who uses a mix of traditional and modern techniques for precise plant identification. However, for bulk identification at industrial scale, the process is protracted and time-consuming. DNA barcoding, on the other hand, offers an alternative and feasible taxonomic tool box for rapid and robust species identification. For the success of DNA barcode, the barcode loci must have sufficient information to differentiate unambiguously between closely related plant species and discover new cryptic species. For herbal plant identification, matK, rbcL, trnH-psbA, ITS, trnL-F, 5S-rRNA and 18S-rRNA have been used as successful DNA barcodes. Emerging advances in DNA barcoding coupled with next-generation sequencing and high-resolution melting curve analysis have paved the way for successful species-level resolution recovered from finished herbal products. Further, development of multilocus strategy and its application has provided new vistas to the DNA barcode-based plant identification for herbal drug industry. For successful and acceptable identification of herbal ingredients and a holistic quality control of the drug, DNA barcoding needs to work harmoniously with other components of the systems biology approach. We suggest that for effectively resolving authentication challenges associated with the herbal market, DNA barcoding must be used in conjunction with metabolomics along with need-based transcriptomics and proteomics.
Cyclic
cell-penetrating peptides are relatively a newer class of
peptides that have a huge potential for the intracellular delivery
of therapeutic agents aimed at treating challenging ailments like
multidrug-resistant bacterial diseases, cancer, and HIV infection.
Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) have been extensively explored as
intracellular delivery vehicles; however, they have some inherent
limitations like poor stability, endosomal entrapment, toxicity, and
suboptimal cell penetration. Owing to their favorable properties that
avoid these limitations, cyclic CPPs can provide a good alternative
to linear CPPs. Several Reviews have been published in the past decade
that cover CPPs and cyclic peptides independently. To the best of
our knowledge, this is one of the first Reviews that covers cyclic
CPPs comprehensively in the light of studies published so far. In
this Review, we have detailed examples of cyclic CPPs, their structures,
and cyclization strategies followed by a detailed account of their
advantages over their linear counterparts. A hot area in cyclic CPPs
is the exploration of cell-penetration mechanisms; this Review highlights
this topic in detail. Finally, we will review the applications of
cyclic CPPs, followed by conclusions and future prospects.
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