First report of hepatic cysticercosis in a rook (Corvus frugilegus) (Passerifomes, Corvidae).

Cysticercosis is an infection with the larval (cysticercus) stage of Taenia spp. that it is seen as cysts in various human and animal tissues. In this study, pathologic findings of hepatic cysticercosis in a rook (Corvus frugilegus) is described. To our knowledge, there is no report on hepatic cysticercosis in rook and this study shows that rooks may play a role as intermediate hosts in the transmission of parasitic infections.

Computer simulation of a novel pharmaceutical silicon nanocarrier.

We show the potential of the nanosilicon structure of the frustules of a typical diatom, Cymatopleura sp., as a new vehicle for drugs. The basic diatom nanostructure is a lattice of SiO2, and computerized methods in a dock project have identified the most likely and the best drug types to load into such a structure.

Forward Modeling of the Coumarin Antifungals; SPR/SAR Based Perspective.

Although, coumarins are a group of compounds which are naturally found in some plants, they can be synthetically produced as well. Because of their diverse derivatives, origin and properties most of them can be used for medicinal purposes. For example, they can be used against fungal diseases or in studying structure and biological properties of antifungal agents to discover new compounds with the similar activity. A Structure Property/Activity Relationship (SAR) can be utilized in prediction of biological activity of desired molecules.In order to represent a relationship between the physicochemical properties of coumarin compounds and their biological activities, 68 coumarins and coumarin derivatives with already reported antifungal activities were selected and eleven attributes were generated. The descriptors were used to perform artificial neural network (ANN) and to build a model for predicting effectiveness of the new ones. The correlation coefficient between the experimental and the predicted MIC values pertaining to all the coumarins was 0.984. This study paves the way for further researches about antifungal activity of coumarins, and offers a powerful tool in modeling and prediction of their bioactivities.

In silico analysis of antifungal peptides.

Antimicrobial peptides are short peptides (< 100 amino acids) that have a potent function against microbial invasion. These peptides are produced by various organisms, including bacteria, fungi, flowering and non-flowering plants, insects and mammals. Antifungal peptides are a major group of antimicrobial peptides that have a specially potent effect against fungi. Several parameters affect the activity of antifungal peptides, including the sequence, size, charge, degree of structure formation, cationicity, hydrophobicity and amphipathicity. By analysis of numerous antifungal peptide sequences, the roles of these parameters in the structure of antifungal peptides are investigated in this review and by the in silico analysis of the existing residues, occupying each position of sequence, a template sequence is defined to generate potent and efficient lead antifungal peptides.