Current Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 17, Issue 8, 2010

Various human tumors preferentially metastasize by lymphatic route and lymphovascular invasion predicts lymph node metastasis. In this review article, we will summarize recent literature data concerning lymphangiogenesis, focusing on tumor lymphangiogenesis. In detail, we try to answer some important questions related to: a) The specificity of lymphatic endothelial cell markers; b) The differential characteristics of lymph Read More

Hepatocellular carcinoma and cholangiocarcinoma are the two most important primary malignancies of the liver. These are among the tumours with the lowest response to pharmacological treatment based on currently available drugs. This is due either to the existence of refractoriness of the initial tumour or to the ability of cancer cells to develop chemoresistance during treatment. Liver cancers share some of the mecha Read More

The gp120 molecule of HIV-1 is a glycoprotein that is part of the outer layer of the virus. It presents itself as viral membrane spikes consisting of 3 molecules of gp120 linked together and anchored to the membrane by gp41 protein. Gp120 is essential for viral infection as it facilitates HIV entry into the host cell and this is its best-known and most researched role in HIV infection. However, it is becoming increasingly evident that g Read More

The life cycle of HIV-1 requires extensive assistance from the host cell proteins and pathways. TSG101 is one of the cellular proteins involved in the budding process of HIV-1, and plays an important role in the cellular vacuolar protein sorting (Vps) pathway. Its main function being recognizing ubiquitinated cargo, TSG101 also proved to be essential for the budding process of HIV-1 virions. In this process, TSG101 is recruited fro Read More

Human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells hold great promise for therapy of a number of degenerative diseases such as ischemic heart failure, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes mellitus, sickle cell anemia and Huntington disease. They also have the potential to accelerate drug discovery in 3 ways. The first involves the delineation of chemical components for efficient reprogramming of patient's blood cells Read More

Cells contain a multitude of different chemical reaction paths running simultaneously and quite independently next to each other. This amazing feat is enabled by molecular recognition, the ability of biomolecules to form stable and specific complexes with each other and with their substrates. A better understanding of this process, i.e. of the kinetics, structures and thermodynamic properties of biomolecule binding, would be inva Read More

P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is an ATP-driven transmembrane transporter capable of effluxing a wide variety of structurally diverse and functionally unrelated hydrophobic compounds out of the cell. Multidrug resistance (MDR), often associated with the over-expression of P-gp, has been implicated as a major obstacle to effective chemotherapy for cancer, parasitic diseases, AIDS, and other diseases. Drug efflux mediated Read More