Yusuf Akhter

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Verified

Yusuf verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• MSc, PhD
• Professor (Assistant) at Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University

Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) is an etiological agent of chronic inflammation of the intestine among ruminants and humans. Currently, there are no effective vaccines and sensitive diagnostic tests available for its control and detection. For this, it is of paramount importance to identify the MAP antigens, which may be immunolog...

Outer membrane proteins (OMPs) in eubacteria have several important roles, which range from membrane transport to the host-pathogen interactions. These are directly involved in pathogen attachment, entry and activation of several pathogen-induced signaling cascades in the cell. The cardinal structural features of OMPs include the presence of a β-ba...

The PE/PPE multigene family codes for approximately 10% of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis proteome and is encoded by 176 open reading frames. These proteins possess, and have been named after, the conserved proline-glutamate (PE) or proline-proline-glutamate (PPE) motifs at their N-terminus. Their genes have a conserved structure and repeat motifs...

Mycobacteria use a unique system for covalently modifying proteins based on the conjugation of a small protein, referred to as prokaryotic ubiquitin-like protein (PUP). In this study, we report a proteome-wide analysis of endogenous pupylation targets in the model organism Mycobacterium smegmatis. On affinity capture, a total of 243 candidate pupyl...

Trichoderma, a versatile biocontrol agent, biofertilizer, and plant growth promoter fungi is a widely used and explored genus. It is amongst the most popular and researched genera that are employed as biological control agents (BCAs) because of its distinctive attributes notably antibiosis, parasitism, simulation of plant defense system, and synthe...

Correction for ‘Antibiofilm activity of Parkia javanica against Pseudomonas aeruginosa: a study with fruit extract’ by Antu Das et al., RSC Adv., 2017, 7, 5497–5513, https://doi.org/10.1039/C6RA24603F.

Leishmaniasis, caused by the protozoan parasites of the genus Leishmania, poses a significant global health challenge, particularly in the resource-limited regions where it causes high mortality. Regardless in the progress of treatment strategies, the emergence of drug resistance and limited efficacy requires the search of novel therapy and therape...

Halophilic bacteria thrive in high-salt environments through structural modifications in their proteins. One such adaptation is seen in the DNA polymerase III beta subunit, which acts as a “sliding clamp” for the DNA polymerase III, the replication machinery's key enzyme. Like other halophilic proteins, DNA Pol III beta of Salinibacter ruber displa...

The insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF1R) is a crucial receptor tyrosine kinase involved in cellular growth, survival, and metabolism. Abnormal overexpression and activation are common in various cancers and contribute to tumor development and resistance to treatment. The STRING database was used to analyze the protein-protein interaction n...

The COVID-19 disease has wreaked havoc on communities all around the world. The capacity to forecast the pandemic growth has been crucial in making decisions on how to combat it and control its spread in current and future waves of infections. Different mathematical models have recently been employed to anticipate the COVID-19 outbreak globally. We...

Papaya leaf curl disease (PaLCD) poses a significant threat to global papaya production, driven by complex infections involving various begomovirus-betasatellite combinations. These infections complicate resistance breeding and disease management strategies due to the continuous emergence and geographical spread of novel viral strains. In this stud...

Breast cancer remains a significant global health challenge, with drug resistance and poor bioavailability of chemotherapeutic agents like paclitaxel (PTX) presenting obstacles to effective treatment. This study investigates the potential role of the Solute Carrier Organic Anion Transporter Polypeptide 1A2 (OATP1A2) in PTX transport using computati...

Multidrug resistance (MDR) in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is a growing threat. Efflux pumps, particularly those belonging to the Major Facilitator Superfamily (MFS), play a key role in MDR. This study investigated MFS transporters across Mycobacterium spp. to understand their evolution and role in drug resistance. We conducted a proteome-wide...

Short-read sequencing technology has emerged as a preferred tool to analyse the bacterial composition of a niche by targeting hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA gene. It targets the short hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA gene and uncovers the taxonomic profile and their associated pathways. QIIME 2 is preferred and ready-to-use pipelines th...

Obligate intracellular protozoan parasite, Leishmania donovani, causative agent of visceral leishmaniasis, led to impaired mac-rophage functions. It is well documented that many of these changes were induced by parasite-mediated reduction in mac-rophage cholesterol content. Leishmania-mediated alteration in the other lipids has not been explored in...

In the present investigation, a novel thermophilic L-asparaginase (Asn_PA) from Pseudomonas aeruginosa CSPS4 was investigated to explore its structural insights at elevated temperatures. Sequence analysis of Asn_PA depicted three conserved motifs (VVILATGGTIAG, DGIVITHGTDTLEETAYFL, and, LRKQGVQIIRSSHVNAGGF), of them, two motifs exhibit catalyticall...

Papaya leaf curl disease (PLCD) is caused by distinct begomoviruses affecting papaya globally. This study aims to identify and dissect the genetic complexities of begomoviruses-betasatellites associated with PLCD. Surveys in various Indian provinces to collect symptomatic papaya leaf samples. Molecular characterization of 15 DNA-A positives isolate...

Background The accumulation of poorly folded protein in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) promotes ER stress and contributes to the pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Current therapies have various adverse effects, therefore, laying the need for an alternative approach. Kaempferol (KP), a naturally occurring flavonoid, possesses potent an...

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), faces iron scarcity within the host due to immune defenses. This review explores the importance of iron for Mtb and its strategies to overcome iron restriction. We discuss how the host limits iron as an innate immune response and how Mtb utilizes various iron acquisition sy...

Cholesterol reduction by intracellular protozoan parasite Leishmania donovani, causative agent of leishmaniasis, impairs antigen presentation, pro-inflammatory cytokine secretion and host-protective membrane-receptor signaling in macrophages. Here, we studied the miRNA mediated regulation of cholesterol biosynthetic genes to understand the possible...

The capacity to forecast the pandemic growth has been crucial in making decisions on how to combat and control COVID-19 spread in current and future waves of infection. Since the phenomenon was developed over time, we have analyzed the COVID-19 confirmed, recovered, and death cases in Indian provinces through time series analysis to comprehend the...

In this study, we compared the occurrence, relative abundance (RA), and density (RD) of simple sequence repeats (SSRs) among the lineages of human pathogenic Cryptococcus gattii using an in-silico approach to gain a deeper understanding of the structure and evolution of their genomes. C. gattii isolate MF34 showed the highest RA and RD of SSRs in b...

Phthalic acid esters (PAEs) are human made chemicals widely used as plasticizers to enhance the flexibility of plastic products. Due to the lack of chemical bonding between phthalates and plastics, these materials can easily enter the environment. Deleterious effects caused by this chemo-pollutant have drawn the attention of the scientific communit...

In the present study, we analyzed GA3 (gibberellin)-treated sugarcane samples at the transcriptomic level to elucidate the differential expression of genes that influence sucrose accumulation. Previous research has suggested that GA3 application could potentially delay sink saturation by enhancing sink strength and demand, enabling the accommodatio...

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In this study, the molecular descriptors (MDs) of a set of halogenated benzooxazepines (BZOs) were evaluated to determine their absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity properties. Molecular docking and dynamics analyses were performed to investigate the action mechanisms. The optimization of BZOs was carried out using density...

Iron acquisition is critical to the virulence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of tuberculosis. To acquire iron within the host, Mtb secretes siderophores that chelate iron with high affinity. Siderophores scavenge iron from host cells using TonB-dependent transporters like FecA. We investigated molecular mechanisms of FecA-...

Iron acquisition is critical to the virulence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB). To acquire iron within the host, Mtb secretes siderophores that chelate iron with high affinity. Siderophores scavenge iron from host cells using TonB-dependent transporters (TBDTs) like FecA. We investigated molecular mechan...

The protozoan parasite Leishmania causes the tropical illness known as leishmaniases. Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL), alias kala-azar in Asian nations, one of the major diverse kinds, along with Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (CL) and Mucocutaneous Leishmaniasis (ML). Chemotherapy is the only choice used in the control of this ailment. The present leishmania...

SARS-CoV-2, virus responsible for COVID-19, posed a significant threat to the world. We analyzed COVID-19 dissemination data in the top ten Indian provinces by infection incidences using the Susceptible-Infectious-Removed(SIR) model, an Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average(ARIMA) time series model, a machine learning model based on the Random F...

We examined literature on Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) subsequent to its genome release, spanning years 1999 to 2020. We employed scientometric mapping, entity mining, visualization techniques, and PubMed and PubTator databases. Most popular keywords, most active research groups, and growth in quantity of publications were determined. By gather...

Plant extracts have been used to treat microbiological diseases for centuries. This study examined plant triterpenoids tormentic acid (TA) and 23-hydroxycorosolic acid (HCA) for their antibiofilm effects on Staphylococcus aureus strains (MTCC-96 and MTCC-7405). Biofilms are bacterial colonies bound by a matrix of polysaccharides, proteins, and DNA,...

Education, particularly science education, aims to encourage people to think, learn, solve problems, and make sound decisions. Science Education as a discipline focuses on disseminating and expanding scientific content as knowledge produced in and through science. There have been very few social pedagogical interventions in which learners are force...

Type 2 diabetes mellitus(T2DM) is one of the most common chronic diseases employing abnormal levels of insulin. Enhancing the insulin production is greatly aided by the regulatory mechanisms of the Fractalkine receptor (CX3CR1) system in islet β-cell function. However, elements including a high-fat diet, obesity, and ageing negatively impact the ex...

The global impact of COVID-19 has heightened concerns about emerging viral infections, among which Monkeypox (MPOX) has become a significant public health threat. To address this, our study employs a comprehensive approach using three statistical techniques: "Distribution fitting," "ARIMA modeling," and "Random Forest" machine learning to analyze a...

Catestatin (CST), a versatile 21 amino acid long cationic peptide, is stored in chromaffin granules and exocytosed upon fusion with the plasma membrane. CST, produced by chromaffin cells and neutrophils, is derived from the processing of chromogranin A and induced in the skin after injury. It involves catecholamine inhibition, blood pressure contro...

Background: Garlic (Allium sativum L.), one of the most important medicinal plants and spices, has manyneuroprotective medicinal properties. Garlic has been mentioned in Indian medical traditions, and Chinese literature, as a remedy for infectious and other non-communicable diseases. Raw garlic and its derivatives have been used to treat a variety...

Azaheterocycles are three-membered rings, known as aziridines, that occur naturally and have pharmaceutical applications.These compounds are present as several secondary metabolites produced by plants and microorganisms.Recent studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of aziridine derivatives (N-H/N-Me) as anticancer agents.We synthesized 18 comp...

A significant portion of the earth has a salty environment, and the literature on bacterial survival mechanisms in salty environments is limited. During molecular evolution, halophiles increase acidic amino acid residues on their protein surfaces which leads to a negatively charged surface potential that helps them to maintain the protein integrity...

Background G9a is a histone H3K9 methyltransferase enzyme found highly upregulated in many cancers. H3 binds to the rigid I-SET domain and the cofactor, S-adenosyl methionine, binds to the flexible post-SET domain of G9a. Inhibition of G9a is known to inhibit the growth of cancer cell-lines. Methods Recombinant G9a and H3 were used to develop radi...

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is primarily transmitted through direct or indirect contact with the mucous membranes of the mouth and nostrils. The presence of SARS-CoV-2 in sputum with a high viral load suggested that maintaining good oral hygiene could be critical in limiting COVID-19 disease. Brushing the teeth frequently and regularly with widely availab...

The drug discovery and development (DDD) process in pursuit of novel drug candidates is a challenging procedure requiring lots of time and resources. Therefore, computer-aided drug design (CADD) methodologies are used extensively to promote proficiency in drug development in a systematic and time-effective manner. The point in reference is SARS-CoV...

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is caused by L. donovani, and most cases occur in Brazil, East Africa, and India. The treatment for VL is limited and has many adverse effects. The development of safer and more efficacious drugs is urgently needed. Drug repurposing is one of the best processes to repurpose existing drugs. Ornithine decarboxylase (ODCase...

This issue marks the retirement of Editor-in-Chief (EIC), Prof. Erko Stackebrandt who served in this role for more than 20 years for the two sister journals, the Archives of Microbiology (AOMI) and the Current Microbiology (CMIC). In the career of a scientist, 20 years is a long span of time, therefore, we may simply state that these two classical...

This issue marks the retirement of Editor-in-Chief (EIC), Prof. Erko Stackebrandt who served in this role for more than 20 years for two sister journals, the Archives of Microbiology (AOMI) and the Current Microbiology (CMIC). In the career of a scientist, 20 years is a long span of time; therefore, we may simply state that these two classical jour...

Fluoroquinolones (FQs) are the most commonly used antimicrobial drugs and regardless of their advantages in the healthcare sector, the pollution of these antimicrobial drugs in the environment has big concerns about human and environmental health. The presence of these antibiotic drugs even at the lowest concentrations in the environment has result...

Pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) recognize distinct features on the surface of pathogens or damaged cells and play key roles in the innate immune system. PRRs are divided into various families, including Toll-like receptors, retinoic acid-inducible gene-I-like receptors, nucleotide oligomerization domain-like receptors, and C-type lectin recept...

Due to the lack of approved vaccines against Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (CL), chemotherapy is the only treatment option. Presently, none of the current CL drugs have high levels of efficacy and safety profiles. Thus, the development of new and safer drugs is urgently needed. Drug repurposing can be used for the development of new therapeutic activitie...

The receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) is a member of the immunoglobulin family that is overexpressed in several cancers. RAGE is highly expressed in the lung, and its expression increases proportionally at the site of inflammation. This receptor can bind a variety of ligands, including advanced glycation end products, high mobilit...

Receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE), a member of the immunoglobulin family, interactions with its ligands trigger downstream signaling and induce an inflammatory response linked to diabetes, inflammation, carcinogenesis, cardiovascular disease, and a variety of other human disorders. The interaction of RAGE and S100A6 has been assoc...

In this study, quantum chemical (QC) investigations, virtual screening, molecular docking, and molecular dynamics analysis of indole-fused benzooxazepines (IFBOs) derivatives are presented. The ab-initio density function theory (DFT) using Becke’s three parameters hybrid functional (B3LYP) and Hartree-Fock (HF) with 6-311+G(d) level of theory were...

Begomovirus causes leaf curl disease, a global threat to crop yield, productivity, and food security. Researchers face a significant challenge in developing resistance strategies against these begomoviruses. Here, a novel protocol with, simplified, generic approach has been proposed to target various regions of dicot infecting Begomovirus' DNA-B. I...

The protozoa Leishmania donovani causes visceral leishmaniasis(kala-azar), the third most common vector-borne disease.The visceral organs, particularly the spleen, liver, and bone marrow, are affected by the disease. The lack of effective treatment regimens makes curing and eradicating the disease difficult.The availability of complete L. donovani...

The COVID-19 pandemic has followed a wave pattern, with an increase in new cases followed by a drop. Several factors influence this pattern, including vaccination efficacy over time, human behavior, infection management measures used, emergence of novel variants of SARS-Cov-2, and the size of the vulnerable population, among others. In this study,...

Background SARS-CoV-2 emerged in late 2019, causes COVID-19. Patients treated with Zyesami were found to be 3-fold decrease in respiratory failure and improvement in clinical outcome. It was reported that Zyesami inhibits RNA replication of SARS-CoV-2, including several non-structural proteins that essential in viral RNA replication. SARS-CoV-2 is...

We illustrate the correct way to compare reproductive numbers obtained from various compartmental models used in mathematical epidemiology.

Here, we analysed the genomic evolution in extremophilic bacteria using long simple sequence repeats (SSRs). Frequencies of occurrence, relative abundance (RA) and relative density (RD) of long SSRs were analysed in the genomes of extremophilic bacteria. Thermus aquaticus had the most RA and RD of long SSRs in its coding sequences (110.6 and 1408.3...

Cell Surface hydrophobicity is one of the determinant biophysical parameters of bacterial aggregation for being networked to form a biofilm. Phytoconstituent, like vitexin, has long been in use for their antibacterial effect. The present work demonstrates the role of vitexin in modulating Staphylococcus aureus surface hydrophobicity while aggregati...

IGF1R is pursued as a therapeutic target because of its abnormal expression in various cancers. Recently, we reported the presence of a putative allosteric inhibitor binding pocket in IGF1R that could be exploited for developing novel anti-cancer agents. In this study, we examined the role of nine highly conserved residues surrounding this binding...

Jawless fishes or Agnatha embodiedas first vertebrates whose line of evolution diverged into jawed fishes or Gnathostomes around 550 million years ago.β PFT protein from two classes reveal a common evolutionary origin and mode of action during pore-formationby protein structural and functionaldivergence in proteins. Here, we assess the connection b...

Energy metabolism is a universal process occurring in all life forms. In Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), energy production is carried out in two possible ways, oxidative phosphorylation (OxPhos) and substrate-level phosphorylation. Mtb is an obligate aerobic bacterium, making it dependent on OxPhos for ATP synthesis and growth. Mtb inhabits varie...

The Poly [ADP-Ribose] polymerase 1 (PARP1) has recently been thought to be one of the potentially successful targets against cancer, specifically for ovarian and BRCA mutated breast cancers. Here, unprotected (N-H/N-Me) aziridine derivatives were recognized as potential anti-cancer compounds targeting the apoptotic pathway using a combined molecula...

Among the JAKs, JAK3 is the most important target for the treatment of inflammatory diseases because its inhibition showed the utmost immunosuppression. Many JAK3 inhibitors are already available but most of them showed acquired drug resistance or objectionable side effects. To prevent inflammatory diseases, novel and superior drugs are needed. The...

Multidrug resistance mechanism of microorganisms towards conventional antimicrobials nowadays faces a common health problem. So, searching and development of new antibacterials are in the frontier areas of biochemistry. Functionalizations of various natural products or synthesis of compounds through molecular modeling followed by virtual screening...

Next-generation sequencing has allowed us to explore new methods where comparative and population genomics can be used simultaneously. Keeping this in mind, we surveyed and analyzed the frequency and distribution of microsatellites in the Indian gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) and compared it with American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) and s...

It is a response to the commentary published in response to our recently published review article (Front Public Health. 2021 Jun 16;9:645405. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.645405).

Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is caused by the protozoan parasite L. maxicana is one of the major parasitic diseases throughout the world. Due to the lack of approved vaccines against CL, chemotherapy is the only modern treatment. These treatments have some major consequences including prolonged treatment, parenteral administration, tolerability, te...

Bioprospecting is the investigation of organic material for industrially significant roles due to its exclusive biochemical properties. This chapter will be focussed on the activities that could frame the premise of new pharmaceuticals obtained from the bioprospecting. Verifiably, the vast majority of the dynamic fixings in medications have been co...

The newly adopted performance-based evaluation and funding model is one of the recent quality initiatives taken by the University Grants Commission in India, which aims to improve quality in management and administration of federally funded universities in India. The article critically analyses the 2020 released ranking based on this model and rais...

It is a response to the commentary published in International journal of infectious diseases.

Leishmaniasis affects roughly 350 million people in endemic areas. Is one of the most neglected tropical diseases, with an estimated 1.3 million new cases per year. Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL), caused by the Leishmania donovani, is the most severe and life-threatening form of leishmaniasis. In the absence of therapy, VL affects the world's poorest...

In this article, we have discussed about the measures of central tendency and the measures of dispersion and the appropriate use of these measures of central tendency and dispersion. It is very important to select the appropriate measure for the variables under study otherwise it will lead to miss concluding information which may cause serious cons...

Currently, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a public health crisis and a major health security threat globally. In Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), major facilitator superfamily (MFS) is the largest group of secondary active transporters. Along with the transport of their natural substrates, MFS proteins were involved in a dynamic drug...

In this review, we have discussed the different statistical modeling and prediction techniques for various infectious diseases including the recent pandemic of COVID-19. The distribution fitting, time series modeling along with predictive monitoring approaches, and epidemiological modeling are illustrated. When the epidemiology data is sufficient t...

Members of group Bacillus are most widely occurring microbes in agricultural soil and they affect crop health in various ways. They directly stimulate plant growth either by augmenting nutrients availability, invigorating plants’ defence mechanisms, repressing soil-borne phytopathogens or by producing growth-regulating phytohormones like auxins and...

Poor oral health has broad consequences that can be seen at personal as well as societal levels, especially in developing countries like India. We have limited information on the healthy oral cavity's inhabitant microorganisms that play a crucial role in overall oral health. In a comprehensive culture-independent approach, the bacterial composition...

Uropathogenic Escherichia coli is one of the primary causative agent of urinary tract infections (UTIs), poses a threat to public health globally. Antibiotics are the only options for the treatment however emergence of multidrug resistance (MDR) necessitates search for alternative therapeutics. Administration of antibiotics generated oxidative stre...

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which emerged in late 2019, causes COVID-19, a disease that has been spreading rapidly worldwide. In human lung epithelial cells and monocytes, RLF-100 (aviptadil) has been found to inhibit the RNA replication machinery of SARS-CoV-2, which includes several non-structural proteins (nsp)...