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Use of learning management systems is prevalent across the continuum of education formats (online, blended, face-to-face). Specific asynchronous tools such as the discussion board are effec...

TopicalPdb (http://crdd.osdd.net/raghava/topicalpdb/) is a repository of experimentally verified topically delivered peptides. Data was manually collected from research articles. The current release of TopicalPdb consists of 657 entries, which includes peptides delivered through the skin (462 entries), eye (173 entries), and nose (22 entries). Each entry provides comprehensive information related to these peptides like the source of origin, nature of peptide, length, N- and C-terminal modifications, mechanism of penetration, type of assays, cargo and biological properties of peptides, etc. In addition to natural peptides, TopicalPdb contains information of peptides having non-natural, chemically modified residues and D-amino acids. Besides this primary information, TopicalPdb stores predicted tertiary structures as well as peptide sequences in SMILE format. Tertiary structures of peptides were predicted using state-of-art method PEPstrMod. In order to assist users, a number of web-based tools have been integrated that includes keyword search, data browsing, similarity search and structural similarity. We believe that TopicalPdb is a unique database of its kind and it will be very useful in designing peptides for non-invasive topical delivery.

Porphyromonas gingivalis is an anerobic, gram negative, bacterium which is a natural inhabitant of oral microbiome. Under unhealthy oral hygiene conditions the bacterium becomes highly destructive (photobiont) and leads to periodontitis (inflammation of periodontium). Several drugs like chlorhexidine, monocycline effectively reduce the viability of biofilms formed by Porphyromonas gingivalis but, it is impossible to destroy biofilms completely. As the bacterium evolves continuously it develops drug resistance due to events like horizontal gene transfer and its biofilm mode of living. Therefore no drug is very efficient in treating Periodontitis. We have done an Insilco Synteny based comparative analysis to find a druggable target which remains unchanged in various Porphyromonas gingivalis strains. Dipeptidylaminopeptidase has been identified one such potential target which is responsible for virulence in Porphyromonas gingivalis, and is functionally and structurally conserved. Therefore, according to best knowledge of authors a drug developed against this target will be effective in treating periodontitis caused by all evolved forms of bacterium.