Current Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 22, Issue 17, 2015

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal disease caused by the gradual degeneration and death of upper and lower motor neurons. Despite continue efforts, the etiology and pathogenesis of ALS are not well understood yet. The lack of knowledge about molecular and cellular players involved in the neurodegenerative progression of ALS hinders effective therapy development. Several genomicbased studies have been Read More

This review focuses on the application of click chemistry in medicinal sciences, and particularly on its role in drug discovery. Because of its high modularity, click chemistry helps to accelerate the current drug discovery process, which relies on massive screening of chemical libraries. This article describes examples of click chemistry applications that are aimed at finding new lead candidates against pathologies such as can Read More

Epigenetics, the study of heritable changes in gene expression without modifying the nucleotide sequence, is among the most important topics in medicinal chemistry and cancer prevention and therapy. Among those changes, DNA methylation and histone modification have been shown to be associated with various types of cancers in a number of ways, many of which are regulated by dietary components that are mostly foun Read More

Leukemia is a life threatening disease that has become increasingly common. Many categories of anti-leukemic agents have been developed by probing into the nature of leukemia. Nevertheless, the needs for potent molecules with few side effects are still not satisfied in the current anti-leukemic therapy. Targeted therapy has been developed for the advantage of relatively high efficiency and safety in the anticancer che Read More

Epigenetic dysregulation has been recognized as an important contributor to cancer initiation and progression as most tumors harbor both genetic and epigenetic abnormalities. Inhibiting epigenetic proteins represents a novel approach in cancer drug discovery and more profound efficacy and less resistance are expected since multiple signaling pathways can be modulated as a result of inhibiting a single epigenetic target. Histo Read More

Histamine and histamine receptors are well known for their immunomodulatory role in inflammation. In this review we describe the role of histamine and histamine H4 receptor on human eosinophils. In the first part of article we provide short summary of histamine and histamine receptors role in physiology and histamine related therapeutics used in clinics. We briefly describe the human histamine receptor H4 an Read More

The nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase (NADPH oxidase, NOX) enzyme family catalyzes the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS have functional roles in cell cycling and signal transduction but their excessive production results in oxidative stress which is believed to have pathological consequences. Oxidative stress in the intestinal tract is considered a major factor contributing to the path Read More