Current Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 13, Issue 12, 2006

Certain lipids can be dispersed as colloidally stable bilayer fragments (BF) or disks with interesting properties for solubilization and delivery of hydrophobic or amphiphilic drugs. They were first observed and characterized as such in the nineties but remained silent in the literature regarding applications for drug delivery. Only recently their potential for delivery of hydrophobic drugs started to be realized. This review deals wit Read More

Cell penetrating proteins or peptides (CPPs) have the ability to cross the plasma membranes of mammalian cells in an apparently energy- and receptor-independent fashion. Although there is much debate over the mechanism by which this "protein transduction" occurs, the ability of CPPs to translocate rapidly into cells is being exploited to deliver a broad range of therapeutics including proteins, DNA, antibodies, oligonucle Read More

Human innate immunity plays a pivotal role in host defense against various microbial challenges. Mediated by a family of Toll-like-receptors (TLR) and associated intracellular downstream signaling molecules, human innate immunity can specifically recognize diverse microbial products and many other non-microbial environmental cues. Beyond its role of providing first line of defense, activation of innate immunity signaling c Read More

The Premature Ovarian Failure (POF) syndrome is a very heterogeneous clinical disorder due probably to the complex genetic networks controlling human folliculogenesis. Clinical subgroups of POF patients whose aetiology of ovarian failure is based on the same genetic factors are therefore difficult to establish. Some experimental evidence suggests that these genes might be clustered on the female sex chromosome in the P Read More

The present report provides a extended study of the chemistry, the inhibitory activity against monoamino oxidases (MAO), and molecular modeling including the 3D-QSAR hypothesis of 1,3,5 - trisubstituted-4,5-dihydro-(1H)-pyrazole derivatives. Four series of about eighty novel pyrazoline derivatives were prepared and investigated for their ability to inhibit the activity of the A and B isoforms of MAO selectively. Most of the Read More

- Obesity and its associated morbidities and mortalities are the effects of imbalance between energy intake and expenditure. The healthcare burden for the treatment of obesity is significantly high, due to increased risk of secondary chronic diseases such as hypertension and associated co-morbidities such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Lack of physical activity, high fat diets and sedentary life styles are major fa Read More

Glutathione-S-transferases (GSTs; EC 2.5.1.18), a family of phase II detoxification enzymes, catalyze the conjugation of glutathione with broad substrates including chemotherapeutic agents, and are involved in cell protection against apoptotic signals by inhibiting the stress-signaling cascade mediated by ASK1 (Apoptosis signal-regulating kinase)-JNK (c-Jun N-terminal kinase). As GSTs are overexpressed in some malignant tum Read More

Continuing developments from the study of cancer at the molecular level are yielding increasing numbers of targets that may be used for therapeutic intervention. Advances in the field of antibody engineering over the past several decades have given scientists the capability of directing the highly specific interaction of antibodies with antigens inward, to the intracellular compartments of living cells. These intrace Read More