Current Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 8, Issue 6, 2001

Higher fungi are characterised by the production of macroscopic fruiting bodies to generate and to distribute their spores. These fruiting bodies are under constant threat of other organisms feeding on them. As a consequence these organisms developed a number of strategies for protection, one of them is the production of toxins. The fungal subdivision Basidiomycotina produce toxic sesquiterpenes many of them are derived Read More

An area of continuing interest in medicinal chemistry is the design, synthesis and pharmacological evaluation of ligands which bind at adrenoceptor subtypes, which include alpha 1A , alpha 1B ,alpha 1D ; alpha 2A , alpha 2B , alpha 2C beeta 1 , beeta 2 , beeta 3 and possibly beeta 4 subtypes. The selective blockade or stimulation of these receptor subtypes is of on-going pharmacological and medicinal interest. However, the de Read More

The reactions of morphine and its derivatives with phenyliodo(III)diacetate (PIDA) have been studied. This methodology has not been introduced to morphine alkaloids, despite the fact that such a strategy would ensure dearomatization of the electrophilic aromatic ring of morphine derivatives leading to nucleophilic ortho-quinoidal structures with potential pharmacological interest. The products, formed in regio- and diastereos Read More

The technology of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy continues to advance at a rapid pace. Recent improvements in gradient technology and the coupling of NMR to various chromatography methods will provide new opportunities in drug discovery. These opportunities include rapid high throughput screening to determine the receptor-bound conformations of small organic ligands. NMR coupled to liquid chromatogra Read More

Agonists of the a4b2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors have been synthesised as potential drugs for treatment of a variety of diseases. In this review, the published nicotinic agonists are presented and, on the basis of the molecular structure, the compounds are divided into three compound classes, nicotinoids (structurally close to nicotine), bicyclic compounds (structurally close to epibatidine and anatoxin-a), and Read More

Numerous studies on the relationship between the structure and function of peptide agonists derived from the biologically active, C-terminal region of human C5a anaphylatoxin have been reported over the past decade. These studies have been performed with the objective of parlaying this structure-function information into the design of peptide-peptidomimetic modulators of C5a receptor (C5aR)-mediated function. In this r Read More

Multidrug resistance, MDR, is a major obstacle in the chemotherapeutic treatment of cancer. MDR can be reversed by drugs that vary widely in their chemical structure and main biological action. Many efforts are directed to find out the relationships between the structure and MDR reversal effect of these drugs. In this review we try to summarize the results of a variety of studies on identification of structure-activity relations Read More

The polystyrene-based 2-chlorotrityl resin was originally used in the synthesis of peptides using an Fmoc-amino acid(slash)carboxyl-linked protocol. While traditionally employed to prepare a number of biologically active peptides, the resin has received increasing attention as a support for the synthesis of pseudopeptide and non-peptide molecules recently. This review focuses on 2-chlorotrityl resin-supported synthesis of small Read More