Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology - Volume 16, Issue 1, 2015

The application of the general model of the law of mass action itself, of the achievement of dynamic, statistical equilibria, has led to great successes in describing the theory of single-molecule biophysics and biochemistry based on individually and freely diffusing molecules in dilute liquid and crowded living cells. For example, anomalous diffusion is a general phenomenon in living cells. There is solid evidence for anal Read More

Nicotinic acid (NA) decreases low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and increases highdensity lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol at pharmacological doses 500-2000 mg/day, which further inhibits the progression of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular morbidity. However, some effects of NA may be mediated through lipid-independent pathways. NA participates in the regulation of glucose metabolism and the NAD-sirtuin pathway, Read More

Fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD) has caused a revolution in the process of drug discovery and design, with many FBDD leads being developed into clinical trials or approved in the past few years. Compared with traditional high-throughput screening, it displays obvious advantages such as efficiently covering chemical space, achieving higher hit rates, and so forth. In this review, we focus on the most recent develop Read More

Every year more than 12,000 people in US alone suffer from spinal cord injury. However, complete recovery of physical function is difficult due to multiple factors involved in disease progression. Currently available therapeutic regimens do not address all the factors concerned with the disease progression. The present review focuses mainly on the role of immune cells in progression of spinal cord injury and the drugs that target Read More

Xylitol is an important polyalcohol suitable for use in odontological, medical and pharmaceutical products and as an additive in food. The first studies on the efficacy of xylitol in the control and treatment of infections started in the late 1970s and it is still applied for this purpose, with safety and very little contribution to resistance. Xylitol seems to act against microorganisms exerting an anti-adherence effect. Some research Read More

The significant role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in stem cell development has been expansively discussed in recent publications and they are noticed to be involved in post transcriptional regulation of gene expression by its affinity towards the 3′UTR of target mRNA. Since the expression of miR-21 was high in cells that were derived from MSCs, recent evidence indicates that miR-21 plays a vital role in mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs Read More

Objective: the aim of the work was to evaluate the effect of moderate physical exercise on the response of circulating phagocytes to the antineoplastic drug NSC 631570. Methods: Eight healthy adult men aged 23 ± 2 years were recruited to participate in the study; NSC 631570 was administered i.v. in a single therapeutic dose; blood samples were collected before and after the drug administration; the moderate phy Read More

Recently, the inhibitor dipeptidyl peptidase-4 has been reported to be beneficial in the treatment of type 1 diabetes mellitus. For the first time, this study evaluates the effect of vildagliptin on β -cell neogenesis and lipid homeostasis in a later phase of type 1 diabetes. In Fischer rats, diabetes was induced with alloxan. After confirmation of diabetic status, the animals received no treatment for 30 days to establish a late phase of th Read More

Achyrobichalcone is a biflavonoid recently found in Achyrocline satureioides. This substance has unprecedented chemical structure and occurrence, but resembles other bioactive bichalcones, which have important pharmacological properties, such as anticancer activity. The major challenge for evaluation of the physicochemical and biological properties of this new molecule is the isolation step, which affects the pur Read More

VARV-CrmB is a TNF binding protein of variola virus. VARV-CrmB protein was previously shown to be active as a TNF-antagonist in a number of in vivo and in vitro models. Here we investigated the epicutaneous effect of recombinant VARV-CrmB protein using an experimental model of muTNFinduced migration of skin leukocytes as well as colony forming activity of bone marrow cells (BMC). Epiсutaneous applications of Read More

The Chinese citrus fruit fly, Bactrocera minax is one of the most economically important and aggressive pests threatening the Chinese citrus industry. In order to provide some recommendations for the improvement of integrated pest management of this species, the authors evaluated the toxicity of 6 insecticides on the second stage larvae, fourth stage larvae, and adult flies from multiple geographical B. minax populat Read More