Current Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 22, Issue 8, 2015

The cysteine protease family members play important roles in various pivotal cellular processes. The difficulty in the analysis of the effects of cysteine protease aberrations in cancer comes as a result of the fact that they take part in complex proteolytic pathways. Nevertheless, there is a vast amount of data regarding the involvement of distinct members of this family in divergent types of cancer. Cysteine proteases assist Read More

Tumor microenvironment can differ considerably in various types of tumors in terms of cellular and cytokine networks and molecular drivers. The well known link between inflammation and cancer has recently found a number of genetic and molecular confirmations. In this respect, numerous reports have revealed that infection and chronic inflammation can contribute to cancer development, progression and control. Adhesion Read More

The current pharmacological therapies for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease are mostly inadequate and recent, improved therapeutic agents are required. Two important molecular targets for the design of anti-parkinsonian therapeutic compounds are the adenosine A2A receptor and the enzyme, monoamine oxidase (MAO) B. Adenosine A2A receptor antagonists are a relatively new class of anti-parkinsonian agents, which Read More

Sigma-2 receptor is a widely distributed protein, which can modulate cell proliferation and involved in the pathogenesis of tumor. Photoaffinity labelling techniques testified that its molecular size is about 18 kDa. Recent studies indicated that sigma-2 receptor modulates the cytosolic Ca2+ concentration, dopaminergic transmission, and cocaine-induced addiction behavior. Some sigma-2 receptor ligands (ditolylguanidine, af Read More

Dementia is a strongly age-related syndrome due to cognitive decline that can be considered a typical example of the combination of physiological and pathological aging-associated changes occurring in old people; it ranges from intact cognition to mild cognitive impairment, which is an intermediate stage of cognitive deterioration, and dementia. The spread of this syndrome has induced to study and try to reduce deme Read More

Over the past few years, use of the genome-wide association study (GWAS) has made it possible to identify the primary genetic mechanisms of essential hypertension. GWAS results have helped identify many loci in or near genes that generally were not expected to be associated with blood pressure or essential hypertension. However, considering the great expectations of improving clinical outcomes and the billions of dollar Read More

Despite progress in pharmacological modalities, treatments for ocular diseases are inconvenient, traumatic, costly and often end in poor final visual results. Peptides, considered as protein fragments, can adequately mimic protein binding and thus are used as therapeutic agents. Chemical modifications and bioengineering techniques are being frequently introduced to improve efficacy and stability of peptides, thereby impr Read More

In the search of novel enzyme-based prodrug approaches to improve pharmacological properties of therapeutic drugs such as solubility and bioavailability, dipeptidyl-peptidase IV (DPP IV, also termed as CD26) enzyme activity provides a previously unexplored successful prodrug strategy. This review covers key aspects of the enzyme useful for the design of CD26-directed prodrugs. The proof-of-concept of this prodrug tec Read More