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In the past few years several developments in medications have been made for the better treatment of certain diseases like Breast Cancer, Alzheimer's disease, Tuberculosis, Obesity and Malaria. Phytochemicals possessing various medicinal properties have opened up the door to discover or design novel drug against these diseases. Syringic acid is such a natural compound found in many plants with a vast range of therapeutic potentials against several diseases. The present study aims to reveal Syringic acid as a potent inhibitor against Breast Cancer, Alzheimer's disease, Tuberculosis, Obesity and Malaria comparing to the standard drugs of each disease. Molecular docking of syringic acid with critical proteins associated with the diseases was done using Schrödinger Maestro (v11.1). QikProp module of Schrödinger Maestro was used for ADME prediction and the toxicity of the ligand was evaluated by ProTox online databases. Syringic acid was found to exhibit acceptable ADME properties with no carcinogenicity and mutagenicity. Molecular docking result also showed higher scores compared to the commercially available standard drugs against four out of five diseases. The best docking scores were found against Breast cancer, Alzheimer's disease, Obesity and Malaria which are -6.801 kcal/mol, -5.285 kcal/mol, -5.491 kcal/mol and -4.141 kcal/mol respectively. Syringic acid can be a stronger inhibitory potential agent against selected diseases than the standard drugs. Further clinical studies are required to consider syringic acid as an effective candidate drug for the better treatment of the mentioned diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent incidence of loose-shell syndrome disease (LSSD) in grow-out shrimp ponds appears to be a major problem in Bangladesh. Therefore, the aims of our study were (i) to observe clinical signs of LSSD to confirm its incidence and (ii) to identify the probable causative agents for LSSD in shrimp. Sampling was conducted randomly from five LSSD-affected ponds and three non-affected ponds near Bakkhali River; ecological parameters were measured. A total of 180 healthy shrimps were used for this experiment, where LSSD-affected shrimp extracts were either injected into the shrimps or mixed with water in the experimental tanks. Finally, microbial examinations were performed to identify the possible LSSD causative agents from the infected individuals. The total shrimp production was higher in ponds with healthy populations (185 kg/ha) than from LSSD-affected ponds (126-146 kg/ha); the survival rate of shrimp at harvest was significantly different (p < .01) between normal and LSSD-affected ponds. The prevalence of infection with white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) and monodon baculovirus (MBV) was found to be lower than that of the Vibrio infections. During the investigation, 8% of LSSD-affected individuals were WSSV positive and 5% were MBV positive, and 4% were infected by both. Our study suggested that the prevalence of LSSD in tiger shrimp might be associated with multiple Vibrio bacterial infections, poor soil and water quality, as well as poor pond management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]