Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) is a private university located in&nbsp;Tamil Nadu, India. Founded in 1984, as Vellore Engineering College, the institution offers 20 undergraduate, 34 postgraduate, four integrated and four research programs. It has campuses in Vellore, Amravati, Bhopal and Chennai.

VIT is one of the top ranked private universities in India according to NIRF, THE and QS Rankings.&nbsp;Govt. of India has recognized&nbsp;VIT, Vellore as an&nbsp;Institution of Eminence. This has allowed VIT to take independent quality initiatives and move up in world ranking.

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VIT University

Kerala is endowed with rich biodiversity of medicinal plants which are widely used in various traditional medicinal systems like Ayurveda which are potential sources of bioactive constituents with effective and safer drugs. The present study is to evaluate the antibacterial, antioxidant and antiproliferative activity of traditional medicinal plants Biophytum sensitivum (L.) DC, Curculiogo orchioides Gaertn. and Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers. The petroleum ether extract of Curculiogo orchioides showed significant antibacterial activity against pathogenic strains of bacteria. Among the other extracts methanolic extract of Curculiogo orchioides showed higher phenolic and flavanoid content and significant DPPH scavenging and reducing power activity. The antiproliferative activity was tested against Hep G2 (hepatocellular liver carcinoma) in which methanolic extract of Biophytum sensitivum and Curculiogo orchioides showed strong anticancer activity with an IC50 108.72 and 127.12μg/ml respectively. Our study confirmed the ethanobotanical and traditional medicinal usage of the three medicinal plants Biophytum sensitivum, Curculiogo orchioides and Cynodon dactylon.

World University root node

Department of Biotechnology

School of Bio Sciences and Technology

Vellore Campus

International Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences Review and Research

Antioxidant, antibacterial and anti-proliferative activity and phytochemical analysis of selected medicinal plants from Dasapushpam of Kerala

A series of β-keto esters were synthesized from heteroaryl esters and ethyl acetate using LiHMDS as base at -50 to -30 °C. The increase in yields of cross condensed product were observed and the percentage of self condensed product was reduced drastically by applying the suitable base (LiHMDS), solvent and the minimum amount of ethyl acetate. All these β-keto esters were characterized using 1H NMR, 13C NMR and mass spectral data. A plausible mechanism is also depicted to prove the formation of trans-esterified products. All the synthesized compounds were subjected to test for their cytotoxicity towards various cancer cell lines and also tested for their antimicrobial activity towards various bacterial and fungal strains and some of them were found to have promising activity. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

VIT Unitversity

Department of Chemistry

School of Advanced Sciences

Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters

Simple, fast and efficient synthesis of β-keto esters from the esters of heteroaryl compounds, its antimicrobial study and cytotoxicity towards various cancer cell lines

The objective of the present study was to isolate halotolerant bacteria from the sediment sample collected from Marakanam Solar Salterns, Tamil Nadu, India using NaCl supplemented media and screened for amylase production. Among the 22 isolates recovered, two strains that had immense potential were selected for amylase production and designated as P1 and P2. The phylogenetic analysis revealed that P1 and P2 have highest homology with Pontibacillus chungwhensis (99%) and Bacillus barbaricus (100%). Their amylase activity was optimized to obtain high yield under various temperature, pH and NaCl concentration. P1 and P2 strain showed respective, amylase activity maximum at 35 °C and 40 °C; pH 7.0 and 8.0; 1.5 M and 1.0 M NaCl concentration. Further under optimized conditions, the amylase activity of P1 strain (49.6 U mL-1) was higher than P2 strain. Therefore, the amylase enzyme isolated from P. chungwhensis P1 was immobilized in sodium alginate beads. Compared to the free enzyme form (49.6 U mL-1), the immobilized enzyme showed higher amylase activity as 90.3 U mL-1. The enzyme was further purified partially and the molecular mass was determined as 40 kDa by SDS-PAGE. Thus, high activity of amylase even under increased NaCl concentration would render immense benefits in food processing industries. © 2012 .

Department of Energy and Power Electronics

School of Electrical Engineering

Department of Software Systems

School of Computer Science and Engineering

Fulltext

Journal of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

Optimization and immobilization of amylase obtained from halotolerant bacteria isolated from solar salterns

Antidiabetic activity of Feronia limonia Fruit and Artocarpus heterophyllus Bark extracts used as edible medicine by local tribal population of Vellore districts were analyzed in streptozotocin induced diabetic rats. Breliminary phytochemical screening revealed the presence of high contents of flavonoid in methanolic extract of Feronia limonia and ethyl acetate extract of Artocarpus heterophyllus compared to other extracts. Diabetes was induced by single intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (45 mg kg -1). Diabetic rats were treated with these extracts at a dose of 200 and 400 mg kg -1 for 30 days. Hypoglycemic activities of extract treated diabetic rats were assessed by the percentage reduction in fasting blood glucose level. Feronia limonia extract showed significant (p&lt;0.05) decrease in blood glucose level when compared to the Artocarpus heterophyllus extract. Treatment of these extracts also had significant decrease in serum cholesterol level and regain in body weight of diabetic rats. The results suggest that unique bioactive constituents responsible for improving type 2 diabetic rats are present and further has to be purified, isolated and characterized to contribute better therapy for NIDDM. © 2012 Academic Journals Inc.

American Journal of Food Technology

Antidiabetic Activity of Feronia limonia and Artocarpus heterophyllus in Streptozotocin Induced Diabetic Rats

Diverse bacteria belonging to various taxa were isolated from tannery effluent of leather industries located at Ranipet, India and were screened for the production of extracellular tannase. One of the strains identified as Klebsiella pneumoniae MTCC 7162 was found to produce tannase (3.4 U/ ml) at pH 6.0, 37°C and 100 rpm. Use of individual carbon and inorganic nitrogen sources resulted in lower tannase production. However, a combination of urea and corn steep liquor extract yielded marginal increase in tannase production (3.9 U/ ml). End-product repression was also studied with inclusion of gallic acid to the growth medium. Enrichment with various additives of metal ions and detergents resulted in inhibition of tannase production. The enzyme was partially purified using ammonium sulfate precipitation followed by the use of DEAE-cellulose. SDS-PAGE analysis indicated that the molecular weight of the protein to be 46.5 kDa. The enzyme was found to be active in a wide range of pH and temperature with an optimal activity at pH 5.5 and 40°C. copy; 2011 Academic Journals.

African Journal of Biotechnology

Production and partial purification of extracellular tannase by Klebsiella pneumoniae MTCC 7162 isolated from tannery effluent

Proline-rich protein (PRP), a cell wall protein of plant, has been studied in many plant species. Yet, none of the PRPs has been functionally elucidated. Here we report a novel flower-specific PRP designated OsPRP3 from rice. Expression analysis showed that the OsPRP3 transcript was mainly present in rice flower and accumulated abundantly during the late stage of the flower development. To study the function of OsPRP3, we constructed and transformed a binary vector containing a full clone of OsPRP3 in sense orientation and also an RNAi vector to achieve overexpression and knockout of the gene, respectively. Our overexpression plants showed a significant increase in cold tolerance than the WT plants which is conferred by the accumulation of OsPRP3 protein during cold treatment. Further the microscopic analysis revealed that OsPRP3 enhances the cell wall integrity in the cold tolerant plant and confers cold-tolerance in rice. Microscopic analysis of the RNAi mutant flower revealed that blocking OsPRP3 function caused significant defects in floral organogenesis. Taken together, the results suggested that OsPRP3 is a cell wall protein, playing a crucial role in determining extracellular matrix structure of floral organs.

Department of Integrative Biology

Plant Molecular Biology

OsPRP3, a flower specific proline-rich protein of rice, determines extracellular matrix structure of floral organs and its overexpression confers cold-tolerance