Current Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 25, Issue 19, 2018

Background: Spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) is a relatively common fatal disease, with an overall global incidence estimated at 24.6 per 100,000 person- years. Given the high degree of morbidity and mortality associated with ICH, therapies that may have neuroprotective effects are of increasing interest to clinicians. In this last context, cell therapies offer the promise of improving the disease course which cannot Read More

Genetic background accounts for only 5 to 10% of the reported cases of Parkinson's disease (PD), while the remaining cases are of unknown etiology. It is believed that environmental factors may be involved in the causality of a large proportion of PD cases. Several PD genes are activated by xenobiotic exposure, and a link between pesticide exposure and PD has been demonstrated. Many epidemiological studies have show Read More

Background: Nowadays, allergen-specific immunotherapy (AIT) is the only treatment able to modulate the course of allergic diseases. Although it has been applied for the last 100 years, treatment with whole allergen extracts is not without its drawbacks: AIT can cause local and systemic adverse events and may produce new IgE sensitization against other allergens present in the extract. Furthermore, the lengthy treatme Read More

Background: Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health today, leading to higher medical costs and increased mortality. Because of the emergence and rapid spread of new resistance mechanisms globally, a growing number of infections are becoming harder to treat as the antibiotics used to treat them become less effective. Therefore, the development of new effective antimicrobial agents is still urg Read More

The alarming increase of antimicrobial resistance has led to a growing number of studies aiming to develop novel antimicrobial therapeutics. Natural antimicrobial peptides possess a potent and broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity combined with diverse and unique structural motifs, which confer their different mechanisms of action. These peptides are ubiquitous in organisms and are integral to the innate immune sy Read More

CD73, also known as ecto-5'-nucleotidase (eN, NT5E, EC3.13.5), is the ratelimiting enzyme for adenosine generation and is expressed on multiple cells. Its expression is significantly influenced by hypoxia and inflammatory factors. During inflammation, CD73 protects endothelial barrier function and inhibits leukocyte trafficking. CD73 also promotes M2 macrophages (anti-inflammatory phenotype). In addition, CD73 is expressed o Read More

Background: Amino acids are crucially involved in a myriad of biological processes. Any aberrant changes in physiological level of amino acids often manifest in common metabolic disorders, serious neurological conditions and cardiovascular diseases. Thus, devising methods for detection of trace amounts of amino acids becomes highly elemental to their efficient clinical diagnosis. Recently, the domain of developing optical s Read More