Current Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 28, Issue 29, 2021

This article presents a simplified view of integrins with emphasis on the α4 (α4β1/VLA-4) integrin. Integrins are heterodimeric proteins expressed on the cell surface of leukocytes that participate in a wide variety of functions, such as survival, growth, differentiation, migration, inflammatory responses, tumour invasion, among others. When the extracellular matrix is degraded or deformed, cells are forced to undergo respons Read More

Multidrug resistance in bacteria is a major threat to global health and the effective prevention and treatment of infections. The urgent need for novel antimicrobial agents, together with the increasing challenges in discovering and developing effective antibiotics, has inspired new approaches and strategies to circumvent antibiotic resistance. Despite this effort, the difficulty in cell-penetration and delivery of antibiotics into bact Read More

The last decade has been characterized by the development and approval of pretomanid and delamanid, which are nitroimidazole based drugs for multidrug -resistant tuberculosis. This attracted renewed attention to the nitroheterocyclic scaffolds as a source of safe and efficient antimicrobial agents. While the primary focus is still on nitrofurans and nitroimidazoles, well known as bioreducible prodrugs, a number of studies hav Read More

Neurological disorders (NDs) comprise a broad range of diseases affecting both central and peripheral nervous systems. These complex multifactorial diseases have a high rate of mortality all over the world, particularly in aged people. Today, new evidence drove our attention to the notable role of noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) in the progression of NDs. Remarkably, recent studies showed that there are close communica Read More

Lupus nephritis (LN) is severe renal comorbidity associated with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), a complex autoimmune disorder with high morbidity and mortality. Diagnosis and monitoring of LN patients still rely on renal biopsy, a procedure that exposes patients to a variety of risks and is not capable of providing longitudinally information about disease prognosis. In this review, we summarized current data of recent Read More

Background: The MAO enzyme is presented in the brain and peripheral tissues and is a significant enzyme that is responsible for the deamination of biogenic amines and thus the regulation of neurotransmitter levels. The reaction of these neurotransmitters with the MAO enzyme produces aldehyde and free amine. MAO enzyme consists of two isoforms, MAO-A and MAO-B, which are characterized by amino acid sequence, t Read More

The inverse relationship between low plasma high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) concentrations and increased risk of Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease (ASCVD) is well-known. However, plasma HDL-C concentrations are highly variable in subjects with ASCVD. In clinical outcome trials, pharmacotherapies that increase HDL-C concentrations are not associated with a reduction in ASCVD events. A causal r Read More

Background: There is currently no drug that slows the process of neurodegeneration or alleviates the cognitive and depressive symptoms in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Due to the increasing number of Alzheimer’s patients, there is an urgent need to develop novel drugs with neuroprotective, procognitive, and antidepressant properties. Objective: The aim of this study was to design, synthesize, and evaluate n Read More