Current Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 18, Issue 8, 2011

Cancers are the largest cause of mortality and morbidity in industrialized countries. In the field of the medicinal chemistry of natural products, numerous studies have reported interesting properties of trans-resveratrol as a chemopreventing agent against cancers, inflammation, and viral infection. Tumor growth inhibition has been linked to the ability of resveratrol to arrest cell cycle progression and to trigger cell death. T Read More

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by a low acetylcholine (ACh) concentration in the hippocampus and cortex. ACh is a neurotransmitter hydrolyzed by acetylcholinesterase (AChE). Therefore, it is not surprising that AChE inhibitors (AChEIs) have shown better results in the treatment of AD than any other strategy. To improve the effects of AD, many researchers have focused on designing and t Read More

Nitric oxide (NO) is a diatomic free radical produced from L-arginine by constitutive and inducible nitric oxide synthase (cNOS and iNOS) in numerous mammalian cells and tissues. Nitric oxide (NO), superoxide (O2-) and their reaction product peroxynitrite (ONOO-) may be generated in excess during the host response against viral and antibacterial infections and contribute to some pathogenesis by promoting oxidative st Read More

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in Western societies and accounts for up to a third of all deaths worldwide. In comparison to the Northern European or other Western countries, the Mediterranean area has lower rates of mortality from cardiovascular diseases and cancer, and this is attributed, at least in part, to the so-called Mediterranean diet, which is rich in plantderived bioactive ph Read More

This review focuses on the potential role of site- and event-selective adenosinergic drugs in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Adenosine is released from the myocardium and vessels in response to various forms of stress and acts on four receptor subtypes (A1, A2A, A2B and A3). Adenosine is an important endogenous substance with important homeostatic activity in the regulation of cardiac function and circulatio Read More

In the last twenty years the efforts to design and optimize new drugs have been based on the three dimensional structure of the selected target proteins. In this regard, useful information has been achieved mainly by protein crystallography, which has recently turned from a low into a high-throughput process thanks to the improvement in robot technologies, automation procedure and the use of synchrotron radiation faciliti Read More

The experimental evidences accumulated during last years point out a relevant role of oxidative stress in neurodegeneration. As anti-cellular oxidative stress agents flavonoids can act either as direct chemical antioxidants, the classic view of flavonoids as antioxidants, or as modulators of enzymes and metabolic and signaling pathways leading to an overshot of reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation, a more recently em Read More

On the basis of different evidences, androstadienone, a steroid compound produced in the armpit, has been proposed as a human pheromone, although its physiological levels appear too low to induce a response under experimental conditions. For this reason, the majority of researchers in this area puts into question the “legitimacy” of androstadienone, and prefers to consider the axillary extracts in its entirety, like a sort of Read More

Lactoferrin, a member of the “Siderophilin” family, is an iron binding glycoprotein. Lactoferrin is produced by various exocrine glands in our body and is abundantly present in milk and colostrums. The uniqueness of lactoferrin as a skeletal regenerative molecule lies in its ability to favorably modulate the responses of the various cell types involved in musculoskeletal regeneration. Lactoferrin exhibits pleiotropic functions and Read More

Introduction: Three anti TNF-α agents have currently been approved for the treatment of moderate-to-severe or complicated Crohn's disease (CD): infliximab, certolizumab and adalimumab. Infliximab is effective in CD, but for reasons linked to its chimeric structure, response to treatment may be lost overtime and as a result, it can sometimes be unable to provide long term durable treatment of CD. Adalimumab, a fully human Read More

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a serious global health problem, with 3-4 million new cases reported each year. Chronic HCV infection places 170 million people at risk of developing liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. However, difficulties in preparing HCV particles in vitro have delayed development of effective anti-HCV therapies. In 2005, Wakita et al. developed an in vitro method to prepare HCV particles, ther Read More

Hibiscus sabdariffa Linne is a traditional Chinese rose tea and has been effectively used in folk medicines for treatment of hypertension, inflammatory conditions. H. sabdariffa aqueous extracts (HSE) were prepared from the dried flowers of H. sabdariffa L., which are rich in phenolic acids, flavonoids and anthocyanins. In this review, we discuss the chemopreventive properties and possible mechanisms of various H. sa Read More