Mango ginger (Curcuma amada) was dried in a through-flow dryer system at different temperatures (40-70°C) and air velocities (0.84 -2.25 m/s) to determine the effect of drying on drying rate and effective diffusivity. As the temperature and air velocity increased, drying time significantly decreased. Among the ten different thin layer drying models considered to determine the kinetic drying parameters, semi empirical Midilli et al., model gave the best fit for all drying conditions. Effective moisture diffusivity varied from 3.7 × 10 −10 m 2 /s to 12.5 × 10 −10 m 2 /s over the temperature and air velocity range of study. Effective moisture diffusivity regressed well with Arrhenius model and activation energy of the model was found to be 32.6 kJ/mol. Artificial neural network modeling was also employed to predict the drying behaviour and found suitable to describe the drying kinetics with very high correlation coefficient of 0.998.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a viral respiratory disease that has been spreading across the globe. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared it as a public health emergency. The treatment of COVID-19 has been hampered due to the lack of effective therapeutic efforts. Main Protease (M pro ) is a key enzyme in the viral replication cycle and its non-specificity to human protease makes it a potential drug target. Cyperus rotundus Linn, which belongs to the Cyperaceae family, is a traditional herbal medicine that has been widely studied for its antiviral properties. In this study, a computational approach was used to screen natural compounds from C. rotundus Linn using BIOVIA Discovery Suite and novel potential molecules against M pro of SARS-CoV-2 were predicted. Molecular docking was performed using LibDock protocol and selected ligands were further subjected to docking analysis by CDOCKER. The docking scores of the selected ligands were compared with standard antiretroviral drugs such as lopinavir and ritonavir to assess their binding potentials. Interaction pharmacophore analysis was then performed for the compounds exhibiting good binding scores to evaluate their protein–ligand interactions. The selected protein–ligand complexes were subjected to molecular dynamics simulation for 50 ns. Results of binding free energy analysis revealed that two compounds—β-amyrin and stigmasta-5,22-dien-3-ol—exhibited the best binding interactions and stability. Finally, absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity (ADMET) studies were performed to understand the pharmacokinetic properties and safety profile of the compounds. The overall results indicate that the phytochemicals from Cyperus rotundus Linn , namely β-amyrin and stigmasta-5,22-dien-3-ol, can be screened as potential inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 M pro .

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract