In this paper, we investigated the antibacterial mechanism and potential therapeutic targets of three antibacterial medicinal plants. Upon treatment with the plant extracts, bacterial proteins were extracted and resolved using denaturing gel electrophoresis. Differentially-expressed bacterial proteins were excised from the gels and subjected to sequence analysis by MALDI TOF-TOF mass spectrometry. From our study, seven differentially expressed bacterial proteins (triacylglycerol lipase, N-acetylmuramoyl-L-alanine amidase, flagellin, outer membrane protein A, stringent starvation protein A, 30S ribosomal protein s1 and 60 kDa chaperonin) were identified. Additionally, scanning electron microscope study indicated morphological damages induced on bacterial cell surfaces. To the best of our knowledge, this represents the first time these bacterial proteins are being reported, following treatments with the antibacterial plant extracts. Further studies in this direction could lead to the detailed understanding of their inhibition mechanism and discovery of target-specific antibacterial agents.
Nanotechnology has been materialized as a proficient technology for the development of anticancer nanoparticles all the way through an environment-friendly approach. Conventionally, nanoparticles have been assembled by dissimilar methods, but regrettably rely on the negative impact on the natural environment. Amalgamation of nanoparticles by means of plant extract is alternate conservative methods. Scutellaria barbata species was used majorly as food or as medicines against various diseases, and extensive research was conducted for their therapeutic properties. The present research was mainly focused on the synthesis of gold nanoparticles from the Scutellaria barbata by green route method and evaluation of its anticancer activity against pancreatic cancer cell lines (PANC-1). The gold nanoparticles have been characterized by UV-visible spectroscopy, TEM, SAED, AFM, and FTIR analysis. The synthesized gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) possessed effective anticancer activity against pancreatic cancer cell lines (PANC-1). Hence, further research on this plant may lead to the development of novel anticancer drugs which can be used to combat pancreatic cancer.