Nyamai, D. W. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2025

Antiproliferative Activity, Phytochemistry, Network Pharmacology, Molecular Docking and Gene Expression Analysis of Maerua edulis Extracts against Human Cervical Cancer Cell Line

Maerua edulis exhibits significant antiproliferative activity against HeLa cells, with hexane and ethyl acetate extracts showing IC50 values of 0.02% and 47.42 {micro}g/mL, respectively. Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis identified key phytochemicals such as diisooctyl phthalate, squalene, and stigmasta-3,5-diene, which were associated with the regulation of apoptotic and cell cycle-related genes (BCL2, CDK2, TP53). Gene expression assays confirmed the modulation of these targets, suggesting the therapeutic potential of M. edulis in cervical cancer. Further in vivo studies are recommended to validate these findings and establish its safety profile.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2018

Aminoacyl tRNA Synthetases as Malarial Drug Targets: A Comparative Bioinformatics Study

Treatment of parasitic diseases has been challenging due to the development of drug resistance by parasites, and thus there is need to identify new class of drugs and drug targets. Protein translation is important for survival of plasmodium and the pathway is present in all the life cycle stages of the plasmodium parasite. Aminoacyl tRNA synthetases are primary enzymes in protein translation as they catalyse the first reaction where an amino acid is added to the cognate tRNA. Currently, there is limited research on comparative studies of aminoacyl tRNA synthetases as potential drug targets. The aim of this study is to understand differences between plasmodium and human aminoacyl tRNA synthetases through bioinformatics analysis. Plasmodium falciparum, P. fragile, P. vivax, P. ovale, P. knowlesi, P. bergei, P. malariae and human aminoacyl tRNA synthetase sequences were retrieved from UniProt database and grouped into 20 families based on amino acid specificity. Despite functional and structural conservation, multiple sequence analysis, motif discovery, pairwise sequence identity calculations and molecular phylogenetic analysis showed striking differences between parasite and human proteins. Prediction of alternate binding sites revealed potential druggable sites in PfArgRS, PfMetRS and PfProRS at regions that were weakly conserved when compared to the human homologues. These differences provide a basis for further exploration of plasmodium aminoacyl tRNA synthetases as potential drug targets.

bioinformatics↗