ABSTRACT
Purpose of Review: Neuropathic pain (NP) has been ubiquitously characterized by lesion and its linked somatosensory system either the central nervous system (CNS) or peripheral nervous system (PNS) This PNS episode is the most prevalent site of NP origin and is found to be associated with afferent nerve fibers carrying pain signals from injured/trauma site to the CNS including the brain. Several kinds of pharmacotherapeutic drugs shuch as analgesics, anti-convulsants, and anti-depressants are being employed for the its possible interventions. The NP has been a great interest to follow different pathophysiological mechanisms which are often considered to correlate with the metabolic pathways and its mediated disease. There is paucity of knowledge to make such mechanism via NP. Recent Finding: Most notably, recent pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 has also been reported in chronic pain mediated diabetes, inflammatory disorders, and cancers. There is an increasing incidence of NP and its complex mechanism has now led to identify the possible investigations of responsible genes and proteins via bioinformatics tools. The analysis might be more instrumental as collecting the genes from pain genetic database, analyzing the variants through differential gene expression (DEG) and constructing the protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks and thereby determining their upregulating and downregulating pathways. Summary: This review sheds a bright light towards several mechanisms at both cellular and molecular level, correlation of NP-mediated disease mechanism and possible cell surface biomarkers (receptors), and identified genes could be more promising for their pharmacological targets.
ABSTRACT
The recently encountered severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 creates huge predicaments among various countries. Lack of specific treatment of COVID-19 disease demands urgency in drug design against SARS-CoV-2 targets. Nigella sativa the miraculous herb native to South and Southwest Asia and belonging to the family Ranunculaceae, due to its beneficial bioactive properties, was used by us for performing in silico study to analyze the potential of its compounds so that they can target and inhibit SARS-COV-2 proteins including its main protease, the papain-like protease, its helicase, and also the RNA-dependent RNApolymerase, RNA-binding protein, Endoribonuclease, receptor-binding domain, and the RNA-binding domain of nucleocapsid phosphoprotein. The procedure of molecular docking was done with the help of AutoDock-Vina 1.1.2. and along with it the ADMET properties of the best suited ligands were found and Lipinski screening was performed. Among 58 ligands screened, various compounds showed binding energy less than the standard drug chloroquine. Three compounds alpha-hederin, rutin, and nigellamine A2 had the least binding energy with the specific SARS-Cov-2 proteins suggesting their best potential as SARS-CoV-2 inhibitor. Hence, in the future, studies including the in vitro and also the in vivo studies can be carried out for analyzing their true potential and encourage use of nutraceuticals like Nigella sativa to inhibit this virus.