Current Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 8, Issue 13, 2001

ThiS review starts from a brief introduction followed by the list of commercial antimalarial drug. According to the nature of chemical entities, these drugs have been divided into the following categories- Quinolines, pyrimidines, amidinies, guanidines, sulfonamides, sulfones, acridines, antibiotics and sesquiterpene lactones. The site of action and status of the antimalarial drugs have been described against each category. A brief d Read More

Virtually all the compounds that are currently used, or under advanced clinical trial, for the treatment of HIV infections, belong to one of the following classes: (i) nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs): i.e., zidovudine (AZT), didanosine (ddI), zalcitabine (ddC), stavudine (d4T), lamivudine (3TC), abacavir (ABC), emtricitabine [(-)FTC], tenofovir (PMPA) disoproxil fumarate (ii) non-nucleoside revers Read More

The role of topological indices in drug development research is updated. A series of definitions in the fields of topological indices and drug discovery technologies are introduced. In all cases where it is possible the IUPAC recommendations for terms used in medicinal chemistry and in computational drug design are used. Recent advances on the use of topological indices in the lead discovery process are reviewed maki Read More

Src homology 2 (SH2) domains are protein modules that mediate intracellular protein-protein interactions in signal transduction pathways. The specific association of an SH2 domain with a phosphotyrosine-containing sequence of another protein induces a cascade of molecular interactions that effect a wide range of cellular processes. Alterations in these signaling pathways have been associated with the development and p Read More

Over the last decades distinct members of the G Protein-Coupled Receptor (GPCR) family emerged as prominent drug targets within pharmaceutical research, since approximately 60 percent of marketed prescription drugs act by selectively addressing representatives of that class of transmembrane signal transduction systems. It is noteworthy that the majority of GPCR-targeted drugs elicit their biological activity b Read More

The prevention of anthracycline cardiotoxicity is particularly important in children who can be expected to survive for decades after cancer chemotherapy with these agents. The rapid increase in clinical toxicity at doses greater than 550 mg / m² of doxoru- bicin (DOX) has made this dose the limiting one in order to avoid DOX-induced cardiac failure. However, arbitrary dose limitation is inadequate because of variabilit Read More

The physiological VDR ligand, 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3, acts upon a wide variety of tissues and cells, both related to and unrelated to calcium and phosphate Homeostasis. The noncalcemic actions of natural and synthetic VDR ligands are exemplified by their potent anti-proliferative, prodifferentiative and immunomodulatory activities. As a result, a VDR ligand is an approved drug for the topical treatment of psoriasis. Read More

Marine natural products, form a field of scientific endeavour, that has recently grown considerably. The isolation, biological evaluation, chemical properties and synthetic elaborations of products of marine organisms have attracted the attention of organic chemists, medicinal chemists, biologists and pharmacists. In this context a structurally and biologically highly interesting class is represented by the marine natural pro Read More