Resistance to pentavalent antimonial drugs and the lack of vaccines make it urgent to find novel therapeutic options to treat Leishmaniasis, a tropical disease caused by the Leishmania protozoan parasite. The study reported here is to investigate if Streptomycin, an aminoglycoside, and Amphotericin B, the second-line treatment drug, exhibit antileishmanial activity through a similar mechanism. By using MOE (Molecular Operating Environment), we performed molecular docking studies on these drugs binding to a range of targets including ribosome targets in Leishmania and H. sapiens. Our study shows that the two drugs do not bind to the same pockets in Leishmania targets but to the same pockets in the human ribosome, with some differences in interactions. Moreover, our 2D maps indicated that Amphotericin B binds to the A-site in the human cytoplasmic ribosome, whereas streptomycin does not.
Todd A. YoungMatthew George Jr.Ayele GugssaWilliam M. SoutherlandYayin FangClarence M. Lee
Adsorptive removal and dynamic interaction of three different pharmaceutical pollutants,namely rifampicin(RIF),streptomycin(STM),and ibuprofen(IBU)onto chitosan were systematically investigated using a batch adsorption technique at different processing parameters.In this study,chitosan was derived from mud-crab shells,as an innovative way to use the waste from marine foods as adsorbents.The kinetics,intraparticle diffusion,mechanism,and thermodynamics of the adsorption were systematically evaluated and analyzed using kinetic models,Boyd mass transfer and WebereMorris intraparticle diffusion models,Langmuir,Freundlich,DubinineRadushkevich,and Temkin isotherm models,and the Gibbs equation.The adsorption isotherm of the larger molecules,RIF and STM,could be explained by the Langmuir isotherm model,in contrast,that of IBU,which is a much smaller molecule,followed the Freundlich isotherm model.The maximum adsorption capacity of RIF,STM,and IBU on chitosan was estimated to be 66.91 mg g^(-1),11.00 mg g^(-1),and 24.21 mg g^(-1),respectively,which are higher compared to those on a variety of agricultural wastes,suggesting that this biopolymer is a potential practical and economical adsorbent to remove the pharmaceutical compounds from wastewater.The adsorption mechanism of the pharmaceutical compounds on chitosan is proposed based on the vibrational spectroscopic analyses,XRD patterns,and DSC thermograms of the biopolymer before and after adsorption process.
