Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 12, Issue 16, 2012

The search for new therapies against neurodegenerative disorders (NDs) such as Alzheimer (AD) and Parkinson (PD) constitutes a very active area. Although the scientific community has realized great efforts for the study of AD and PD from the most diverse points of view, these diseases remain incurable. Consequently, the design of new and more potent compounds for proteins associated with AD and PD represents nowadays, Read More

Thermolysin (TLN) and other thermolysin-like zinc metalloproteinases (TLPs),are important virulence factors for pathogenesis of bacterial infections by suppressing the innate immune system of the host. Therapeutic inhibition ofTLPs is believed to be a novel strategy inthe development of a new generation antibiotics.In the present study inhibition of TLN and angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) by small peptides were studied b Read More

Linear and non-linear QSAR studies have been performed in present investigation with multiple linear regressions (MLR) analysis and Support vector machine (SVM) using different kernels. Three relevant descriptors out of fifteen descriptors calculated are identified as LOGP values, G3e and Rte+. Their relationship with biological activity IC50 have provided structural insights in interpretation and serializing the results into Read More

During more than five decades, pyridinium oximes have been developed as therapeutic agents used in the medical treatment of poisoning with organophosphorus compounds. Their mechanism of action is reactivation of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibited by organophosphorus agents. Organophosphorus compounds (OPC) are used as pesticides and developed as warfare nerve agents such as tabun, soman, sarin, VX a Read More

Computational algorithms to explore the conformational space of small molecules are complex and computer demand field in chemoinformatics. In this paper a hybrid algorithm to explore the conformational space of organic molecules is presented. This hybrid algorithm is based in a systematic search approach combined with a Monte Carlo based method in order to obtain an ensemble of low-energy conformations simulating th Read More

A number of neurodegenerative diseases have been associated with potentially neurotoxic alterations in the kynurenine pathway. Due to the potent inhibitory effect of kynurenic acid on glutamate receptor function, the potential use of the elevation of its concentrations in the brain in the protection against excitotoxic injury has earned an ever greater interest. The first strong preclinical achievements of protection in trans Read More

It is estimated that by 2050 over 100 million people will be affected by the Parkinson's disease (PD). We propose various computational approaches to screen suitable candidate ligand with anti-Parkinson's activity from phytochemicals. Five different types of dopamine receptors have been identified in the brain, D1–D5. Dopamine receptor D3 was selected as the target receptor. The D3 receptor exists in areas of the brain o Read More

Bibliometric methods for analyzing and describing research output have been supported internationally by the establishment and operation of organizations such as the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) or Scimago Ranking Institutions (SRI). This study provides an overview of the research performance of major World countries in the field cytokines, Citometric bead assays and QSAR, the most important journals in Read More

Computer-aided drug discovery is a growing frontier in science. It covers different sub areas like chemoinformatics and chemogenomics. Chemogenomics is one of the emerging inter-disciplinary approaches in drug discovery, which combines conventional ligand based approach with biological information of drug targets. The main goal of this review is to check effective application of chemogenomics in understanding Read More

The number of neurodegenerative diseases has been increasing in recent years. Many of the drug candidates to be used in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases present specific 3D structural features. An important protein in this sense is the acetylcholinesterase (AChE), which is the target of many Alzheimer's dementia drugs. Consequently, the prediction of Drug-Protein Interactions (DPIs/nDPIs) between new dru Read More