Current Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 12, Issue 6, 2005

Immune responses to cancer cells can be elicited in vivo by administering synthetic peptides derived from proteins uniquely or overexpressed on tumor cells (tumor associated antigens - TAAs). Peptides derived from TAAs are presented in the context of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules to cytotoxic T cells (CTL), which can recognize and lyze tumor cells. In contrast to peptides derived from an exogenous sourc Read More

The photoaffinity labeling technique is based on UV-light induced crosslinking of proteins to photoreactive DNA. Photoreactive groups can be introduced at different points of DNA (base or phosphate) either at the ends or in inner positions of the DNA chain by combination of enzymatic and chemical synthesis. Varying the structure of photoreactive DNA one can design the intermediates of different stages of DNA replication Read More

Betulinic acid is a naturally occurring pentacyclic triterpenoid and has been shown to exhibit a variety of biological activities including inhibition of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), antibacterial, antimalarial, antiinflammatory, anthelmintic and antioxidant properties. This article reports a survey of the literature dealing with betulinic acid related biological properties that has appeared from the 1990's to the beginning of 20 Read More

The potential use of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, biological or chemical) by terrorist organizations represents a major threat to world peace and safety. Only a limited number of vaccines are available to protect the general population from the medical consequences of these weapons. In addition there are major health concerns associated with a pre-exposure mass vaccination of the general population. To re Read More

Many drugs, both approved and in development, exert their effects through transcription factors. The complexity of the biology of transcriptional regulation, however, presents challenges to the effective design of therapies that directly target transcription factors. This review focuses on the different approaches that are currently pursued in therapeutics and drug discovery aimed at targeting transcription factors and signalin Read More

Medicinal compounds from plants represent one of the largest and most diverse groups of plant secondary metabolites. The advent of advanced bioinformatics tools and modern genetic technology allowed for manipulation of biosynthetic pathways with the potential of generating novel chemical entities. First, public databases of secondary metabolite related enzymes were interrogated to identify relevant plant genes fro Read More

Within the flavonoid class of natural products the prenylated sub-class is quite rich in structural variety and pharmacological activity. In the last twenty years a huge number of new structures has been reported, mostly from Leguminosae and Moraceae, with few coming from other genera. The presence, in different forms, of the isoprenoid chain can lead to impressive changes in biological activity, mostly attributed to an inc Read More

The HIV-1 regulatory proteins Tat and Rev and the accessory proteins Vpr, Vpu and Vif are essential for efficient viral replication, and their cytoplasmic production suggests that they should be processed for recognition by cytotoxic T lymphocytes. However, only limited data is available, evaluating the role of immune responses directed against these proteins in natural HIV-1 infection. Recent advances in the methods use Read More