ABSTRACT
Over the past few decades, the number of health and 'omics-related data' generated and stored has grown exponentially. Patient information can be collected in real time and explored using various artificial intelligence (AI) tools in clinical trials; mobile devices can also be used to improve aspects of both the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. In addition, AI can be used in the development of new drugs or for drug repurposing, in faster diagnosis and more efficient treatment for various diseases, as well as to identify data-driven hypotheses for scientists. In this review, we discuss how AI is starting to revolutionize the life sciences sector.
Subject(s)
Artificial Intelligence , Biological Science Disciplines , Biotechnology , Clinical Trials as Topic , Data Science , Drug Design , Drug Development , Electronic Health Records , Humans , Mobile Applications , Natural Language Processing , Pharmacology , PublishingABSTRACT
The constant demand for new antibiotic drugs has driven efforts by the scientific community to prospect for peptides with a broad spectrum of action. In this context, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have acquired great scientific importance in recent years due to their ability to possess antimicrobial and immunomodulatory activity. In the last two decades, plants have attracted the interest of the scientific community and industry as regards their potential as biofactories of heterologous proteins. One of the most promising approaches is the use of viral vectors to maximize the transient expression of drugs in the leaves of the plant Nicotiana benthamiana. Recently, the MagnifectionTM expression system was launched. This sophisticated commercial platform allows the assembly of the viral particle in leaf cells and the systemic spread of heterologous protein biosynthesis in green tissues caused by Agrobacterium tumefaciens "gene delivery method". The system also presents increased gene expression levels mediated by potent viral expression machinery. These characteristics allow the mass recovery of heterologous proteins in the leaves of N. benthamiana in 8 to 10 days. This system was highly efficient for the synthesis of different classes of pharmacological proteins and contains enormous potential for the rapid and abundant biosynthesis of AMPs.
Subject(s)
Agrobacterium tumefaciens/metabolism , Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides/biosynthesis , Molecular Farming/methods , Nicotiana/metabolism , Plants, Genetically Modified/metabolism , Protein Biosynthesis , Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides/pharmacology , Biotechnology/methods , Genetic Vectors/genetics , Genetic Vectors/metabolismABSTRACT
Despite the advances in tumor identification and treatment, cancer remains the primary driver of death around the world. Also, regular treatments for the disease are incapable of targeting particular cancer types at different stages since they are not specifically focused on harmful cells since they influence both solid and tumor cells, causing side effects and undesirable symptoms. Therefore, novel strategies should be developed to treat this disease. Several efforts have been made in this direction to find more effective alternatives to cancer treatment, such as the use of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) with antitumoral activity, nanocarriers and natural compounds from a variety of sources. AMPs are more specific to their targets because of electrostatic interaction between AMPs and the cancer cells' plasma membrane. Nanocarriers may be used for the delivery of non-soluble drugs, which are poorly stable or require a controlled release. In addition, natural compounds have been a rich source of anti-cancer agents for decades. In this review, these three approaches will be discussed, showing recent advances and advantages of using these strategies to treat cancer as well as the combination of these approaches increasing anticancer activity.
