Influence Of Structural Diversity Research Articles

Network-based approach highlighting interplay among anti-hypertensives: target coding-genes: diseases

Elucidating the relation between the medicines: targets, targets: diseases and diseases: diseases are of fundamental significance as-is for societal benefit. Hypertension is one of the dangerous health conditions prevalent in society, is a risk factor for several other diseases if left untreated and anti-hypertensives (AHs) are the approved drugs to treat it. The goal of the study is to decipher the connection between hypertension with other health conditions, however, is challenging due to the large interactome. To fulfill the aim, the strategy involves prior clustering of the AHs into groups as per our previous method, followed by the analyzing functional association of the target coding-genes (tc-genes) and health conditions for each group. Following our recently published work where the AHs are clustered into six groups such that molecules having similar patterns come together, here, the distribution of molecular functions and the cellular components adopted by the tc-genes of each group are analyzed. The analyses indicate that kidney, heart, brain or lung related ailments are commonly associated with the tc-genes. The association of selective tc-genes to health conditions suggests a preference for certain health conditions despite many possibilities. Analyses of experimentally validated drug–drug combinations indicate the trend in successful AHs combinations. Clinically validated combinations bind different targets. Our study provides a promising methodology in a network-based approach that considers the influence of structural diversity of AHs to the functional perspective of tc-genes concerning the health conditions. The method could be extended to explore disease–disease relationships.

Data science-driven analyses of drugs inducing hypertension as an adverse effect.

The utilization of approved medication is a requisite to combat certain diseases for health; however, the undesirable adverse effects (AEs) due to medication are generally unavoidable. Hypertension is one of such AEs resulting from approved medication in which blood pressure in the arteries gets elevated and is a risk factor for several diseases including heart and kidney failure. HTs are the approved drugs that can cause hypertension as an AE. Here, the goal of the study is to investigate the structural and functional diversities of HTs. In our quest to unravel the structural parameters of the HTs, a systematic analysis of the HTs having a different number and type of ring systems was conducted. The cellular component, molecular function and biological processes adopted by the gene products were analyzed. Moreover, our systematically done analysis suggests that all the target families are active in a common pathway, that is, nerve transmission. A comparison of the selected structural and functional aspect of HTs with anti-hypertensives suggests that HTs follow certain structural and functional features in spite of many possibilities. Our study provides a promising methodology that considers the influence of structural diversity of AE causing agents on a functional perspective for precursory clinical decision making. This could be extended to explore the structural and functional trends that are adopted by agents causing certain diseases or AEs.

Importance of tree species size dominance and heterogeneity on the productivity of spruce-fir-beech mountain forest stands in Europe

There is concern in the scientific community and among forest managers about potential reductions in the provisioning of forest ecosystem services due to the loss of tree species diversity. Many studies have shown how species diversity influences forest functioning, especially productivity, but the influence of structural diversity, such as tree size heterogeneity, has received much less attention. This study focused on understanding the relationship between stand productivity and several structural characteristics of spruce-fir-beech mountain forest stands in Europe. We used a dataset of 89 long-term plots in spruce-fir-beech forests distributed along the European mountains where the three species, Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.), silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) and European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.), represent at least 75% of the basal area. Site-dependent conditions were accounted for in a linear mixed-effect basic model, which related the stand productivity with the morphological, climatic and pedological characteristics. The influence of tree species diversity, tree size heterogeneity, species size dominance, and species overlapping in the size distribution on stand productivity was analysed by adding variables to the basic model one by one and evaluating the change in the Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC). The variables that resulted in significant reductions in the AIC, and that were not correlated with each other, were used to build a model to estimate stand productivity. The model showed that in spruce-fir-beech mixed mountain forests (i) when Norway spruce, silver fir and European beech are evenly present within the size distribution (high evenness) the productivity decreases, (ii) the stand productivity increases when the diameter distribution is skewed to the right (higher numbers of smaller individuals), (iii) the stand productivity increases as the proportion of basal area that is spruce increases, and (iv) stand productivity increases with the variability in diameter. We discuss the implications of our results for the management of spruce-fir-beech mountain forest in Europe and for preserving and increasing the stand productivity of these mixed forests.