Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 16, Issue 10, 2010

Many people of the total inhabitans suffers from the primary gastrointestinal (GI) damage with unknown etiology and secondary GI damage of which clinical feature appears in association with the presence of different physical, chemical, viral or bacterial and other noxious agents, including big numbers of drugs. In our days, a great attention has been paid to patients infected with Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), and also to an Read More

The development of more selective agents focused on targeted delivery of imaging probes and drugs to different tumor sites is the current trend in cancer diagnosis and therapies. Peptides are small amino acid sequences that can be isolated to bind to a predetermined target and are potentially capable of interfering with its function. These specific peptides isolated can inhibit individual signaling components, which are essential i Read More

It is well known that heat shock proteins (HSPs) are induced by various stressors in order to confer protection against such stressors. Since stressor-induced tissue damage is involved in various diseases, especially gastrointestinal diseases, such as gastric ulcer, it has been thought that HSPs are protective against these diseases. Indirect lines of evidence, such as identification of geranylgeranylacetone (GGA, a leading anti-ulcer d Read More

It is well known that the capsaicin stimulates (in small doses) or impairs (in high doses) the capsaicin-sensitive afferent nerves and the final effects of capsaicin depend on its applied doses. The effects of capsaicin were analyzed on the gastrointestinal mucosal protection and injury in animal experiments and in human beings (from 1980 up to now). From 2005 to 2008 an interdisciplinary group (21 researchers) participated in Read More

Recent advances in endoscopic techniques such as capsule endoscopy have revealed that nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) often cause ulcers in the small intestine in humans, but there are few effective agents for treatment of small intestinal ulcers. Although the pathogenesis of NSAID-induced intestinal ulcer has been widely studied, dietary factors have seldom been considered. In the present review, the role Read More

Orexigenic peptides are group of endocrine hormones exerting a pleiotropic influence on many physiological functions including regulation of the feeding behaviour and energy expenditure, release of growth hormone (GH) and inotropic effects on the heart. Some of these peptides such as ghrelin, originally identified in the gastric mucosa, has been involved not only in control of food intake and growth hormone release but Read More

The significance of cytoprotection and adaptive cytoprotection and the peptides importance remained to be not completely determined. BPC 157 is an anti-ulcer peptidergic agent, proven in clinical trials to be both safe in inflammatory bowel disease (PL-10, PLD-116, PL 14736) and wound healing, and stable in human gastric juice, with no toxicity being reported. It has a prominent effect on alcohol- lesions (i.e., induced acu Read More

Gastric acid secretion has been sometimes inadequately expressed as pH value rather than amount of gastric H+ secreted per unit time. Gastric acid secretion is regulated by endocrine, paracrine and neurocrine signals via at least three messenger pathways: gastrin-histamine, CCK-somatostatin, and neural network. These pathways have been largely validated and further characterized by phenotyping a series of kn Read More

Gastroduodenal HCO3 - secretion is a key process that aids in preventing acid-peptic injury. The HCO3 - secretion in rats and mice was increased in response to PGE2 as well as mucosal acidification, the latter response occurring with a concomitant enhancement of mucosal PG production. The duodenal responses to PGE2 and acid were decreased in mice lacking EP3 receptors and reduced by coadministration of an EP3 or EP4 Read More

α,β-Diamino acids have attracted considerable attention recently due to their growing importance in pharmaceutical and biochemical research. For example, this special class of diamino acids has become the components of enzyme inhibitors, and has been incorporated into peptides which are used to modulate secondary and tertiary structural conformations. Although their widely occurrence in nature, optically active α,β-diami Read More