Shaik Mahmood

Microbial abundance and degradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in soil

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a group of highly lipophilic chemicals that are generally formed during combustion, pyrolysis and pyrosynthesis of organic matter and are present ubiquitously in the urban environment as pollutants in very small quantities. The objective of the present study was to determine the activity of indigenous microbial populations of hazardous waste sites, their degree of adaptation, their ability to degrade toxic PAHs, and to study the potentials of different indigenous microbes to degrade the following selected PAHs from the polluted soil environment. PAHs selected for the study were anthracene, phenanthrene, chrysene, pyrene and fluoranthene. In this study, the indigenous contaminated soil populations were effective in removing the hydrocarbons and returning the soil to productivity. The biodegradation of PAHs in the selected soil was due to PAH degrader present in the bacterial as well as fungal communities. 13 refs., 2 tabs.

Pharmacophore modeling of diverse classes of p38 MAP kinase inhibitors.

Mitogen-activated protein (MAP) p38 kinase is a serine-threonine protein kinase and its inhibitors are useful in the treatment of inflammatory diseases. Pharmacophore models were developed using HypoGen program of Catalyst with diverse classes of p38 MAP kinase inhibitors. The best pharmacophore hypothesis (Hypo1) with hydrogen-bond acceptor (HBA), hydrophobic (HY), hydrogen-bond donor (HBD), and ring aromatic (RA) as features has correlation coefficient of 0.959, root mean square deviation (RMSD) of 1.069 and configuration cost of 14.536. The model was validated using test set containing 119 compounds and had high correlation coefficient of 0.851. The results demonstrate that results obtained in this study can be considered to be useful and reliable tools in identifying structurally diverse compounds with desired biological activity.

Strategies for generating less toxic P-selectin inhibitors: Pharmacophore modeling, virtual screening and counter pharmacophore screening to remove toxic hits

This paper describes the generation of ligand-based as well as structure-based models and virtual screening of less toxic P-selectin receptor inhibitors. Ligand-based model, 3D-pharmacophore was generated using 27 quinoline salicylic acid compounds and is used to retrieve the actives of P-selectin. This model contains three hydrogen bond acceptors (HBA), two ring aromatics (RA) and one hydrophobic feature (HY). To remove the toxic hits from the screened molecules, a counter pharmacophore model was generated using inhibitors of dihydrooratate dehydrogenase (DHOD), an important enzyme involved in nucleic acid synthesis, whose inhibition leads to toxic effects. Structure-based models were generated by docking and scoring of inhibitors against P-selectin receptor, to remove the false positives committed by pharmacophore screening. The combination of these ligand-based and structure-based virtual screening models were used to screen a commercial database containing 538,000 compounds.

Streptomyces hyderabadensis sp. nov., an actinomycete isolated from soil.

A novel actinomycete, designated strain OU-40(T), was isolated from farm soil collected from the Hyderabad region of Andhra Pradesh, southern India. The strain was found to have morphological and chemotaxonomic characteristics typical of species of the genus Streptomyces. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain OU-40(T) belonged to the genus Streptomyces, and was related most closely to Streptomyces pactum NBRC 13433(T) (99.0 % sequence similarity), Streptomyces olivaceus NBRC 12805(T) (99.0 %) and Streptomyces parvulus NBRC 13193(T) (98.8 %). Strain OU-40(T) could be distinguished from the type strains of its closest phylogenetic relatives based on levels of DNA-DNA relatedness and comparison of morphological and phenotypic data. It is therefore concluded that strain OU-40(T) represents a novel species of the genus Streptomyces, for which the name Streptomyces hyderabadensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is OU-40(T) (=CCTCC AA 209024(T) =PCM 2692(T)).

Insight into the structural requirements of proton pump inhibitors based on CoMFA and CoMSIA studies.

In the present study, a series of 179 quinoline and quinazoline heterocyclic analogues exhibiting inhibitory activity against Gastric (H+/K+)-ATPase were investigated using the comparative molecular field analysis (CoMFA) and comparative molecular similarity indices (CoMSIA) methods. Both the models exhibited good correlation between the calculated 3D-QSAR fields and the observed biological activity for the respective training set compounds. The most optimal CoMFA and CoMSIA models yielded significant leave-one-out cross-validation coefficient, q(2) of 0.777, 0.744 and conventional cross-validation coefficient, r(2) of 0.927, 0.914 respectively. The predictive ability of generated models was tested on a set of 52 compounds having broad range of activity. CoMFA and CoMSIA yielded predicted activities for test set compounds with r(pred)(2) of 0.893 and 0.917 respectively. These validation tests not only revealed the robustness of the models but also demonstrated that for our models r(pred)(2) based on the mean activity of test set compounds can accurately estimate external predictivity. The factors affecting activity were analyzed carefully according to standard coefficient contour maps of steric, electrostatic, hydrophobic, acceptor and donor fields derived from the CoMFA and CoMSIA. These contour plots identified several key features which explain the wide range of activities. The results obtained from models offer important structural insight into designing novel peptic-ulcer inhibitors prior to their synthesis.

Discovery of novel InhA reductase inhibitors: application of pharmacophore- and shape-based screening approach.

BACKGROUND InhA is a promising and attractive target in antimycobacterial drug development. InhA is involved in the reduction of long-chain trans-2-enoyl-ACP in the type II fatty acid biosynthesis pathway of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Recent studies have demonstrated that InhA is one of the targets for the second line antitubercular drug ethionamide. RESULTS In the current study, we have generated quantitative pharmacophore models using known InhA inhibitors and validated using a large test set. The validated pharmacophore model was used as a query to screen an in-house database of 400,000 compounds and retrieved 25,000 hits. These hits were further ranked based on its shape and feature similarity with potent InhA inhibitor using rapid overlay of chemical structures (OpenEye™) and subsequent hits were subjected for docking. Based on the pharmacophore, rapid overlay of chemical structures model and docking interactions, 32 compounds with more than eight chemotypes were selected, purchased and assayed for InhA inhibitory activity. Out of the 32 compounds, 28 demonstrated 10-38% inhibition against InhA at 10 µM. CONCLUSION Further optimization of these analogues is in progress and will update in due course.

3D-QSAR and molecular docking studies of 1,3,5-triazene-2,4-diamine derivatives against r-RNA: novel bacterial translation inhibitors.

Aminoglycoside mimetics inhibit bacterial translation by interfering with the ribosomal decoding site. To elucidate the structural properties of these compounds important for antibacterial activity, comparative molecular field analysis (CoMFA) and comparative molecular similarity indices analysis (CoMSIA) were applied to a set of 56 aminoglycosides mimetics. The successful CoMFA model yielded the leave-one-out (LOO) cross-validated correlation coefficient (q(2)) of 0.708 and a non-cross-validated correlation coefficient (r(2)) of 0.967. CoMSIA model gave q(2)=0.556 and r(2)=0.935. The CoMFA and CoMSIA models were validated with 36 test set compounds and showed a good r(pred)(2) of 0.624 and 0.640, respectively. Contour maps of the two QSAR approaches show that electronic effects dominantly determine the binding affinities. These obtained results were agreed well with the experimental observations and docking studies. The results not only lead to a better understanding of structural requirements of bacterial translation inhibitors but also can help in the design of novel bacterial translation inhibitors.

Research Article: Comparative Molecular Field Analysis of Quinoline Derivatives as Selective and Noncompetitive mGluR1 Antagonists

A 3D‐ QSAR model os Comparative Molecular Field Analysib (CoMFA) of 45 quinoline derivatives as metaborropic glutamate receptor subtype 1 (mGluR1) inhibitors wew investigated. The CoMFA analysis provided a model with q2 value of 0.827 and r2 value of 0.990, in which q2 value of 0.827 and an r2 value of 0.990, in which the good correlation between the inhibitory activities and the steric and electrostatic molecular field around the analoques was observed. The predictive ability of the models was validated using the set of 12 compounds that were not included in the training set of 33 compounds. These results provided further understanding of the relationship between the structural features of quinolone derivatives and its activities, which should be applicable to design and find new potential mGluR1 inhibitors.

Comparative molecular field analysis of quinoline derivatives as selective and noncompetitive mGluR1 antagonists.

A 3D‐ QSAR model os Comparative Molecular Field Analysib (CoMFA) of 45 quinoline derivatives as metaborropic glutamate receptor subtype 1 (mGluR1) inhibitors wew investigated. The CoMFA analysis provided a model with q2 value of 0.827 and r2 value of 0.990, in which q2 value of 0.827 and an r2 value of 0.990, in which the good correlation between the inhibitory activities and the steric and electrostatic molecular field around the analoques was observed. The predictive ability of the models was validated using the set of 12 compounds that were not included in the training set of 33 compounds. These results provided further understanding of the relationship between the structural features of quinolone derivatives and its activities, which should be applicable to design and find new potential mGluR1 inhibitors.

Streptomyces osmaniensis sp. nov., isolated from soil

A novel actinomycete, designated strain OU-63T, was isolated from garden soil collected on the campus of Osmania University in Hyderabad, southern India. The strain was found to have morphological and chemotaxonomic characteristics typical of the genus Streptomyces. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that the strain belonged to the genus Streptomyces, and was related most closely to Streptomyces chartreusis NBRC 12753T (98.6% similarity). However, the mean level of DNA-DNA relatedness between the two strains was only 25+/-1.73%. Based on DNA-DNA relatedness, morphological and phenotypic data, strain OU-63T could be distinguished from the type strains of phylogenetically related species. It is therefore considered to represent a novel species of the genus Streptomyces, for which the name Streptomyces osmaniensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is OU-63T (=CCTCC AA209025T =PCM 2690T).