Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 4, Issue 13, 2004

With the complete sequencing of the human and other genomes and recent technical advances such as DNA microarray analysis, comparative genomic hybridization, real-time PCR, and capillary electrophoresis, unprecedented progress is being made in understanding drug effects on the genome and the influence of the genome on drug toxicity and efficacy. This special issue of Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry descri Read More

With the advent of DNA microarray analysis, it is now possible to examine the response of virtually the entire human genome to cellular drug exposure and to uncover a wide variety of genes correlating with the establishment of drug resistance. This relatively new field of “pharmacogenomics” is likely to vastly increase our understanding of the mechanisms of drug action and how cells respond and adapt t Read More

Multiple mechanisms contribute to chemoresistance, eventually leading to failure of cancer chemotherapy. Deregulated growth factor signaling pathways promote cell proliferation and render cancer cells resistant to apoptosis, a common mechanism of chemoresistance. Therefore, inhibitors of growth factor signaling, including antibodies and small molecules, are promising drug candidates for chemotherapy, either Read More

Recent advances in DNA microarray technology have great impact on many areas of biomedical research and pharmacogenomics: discovering novel targets and genes, elucidating signatures of complex diseases, transcriptional profiling of models for diseases, and the development of individually optimized drugs based on differential gene expression patterns. Consequently, there is demand for robust methods for data Read More

Therapeutic stem cell applications represent a newly evolving approach for the treatment of several genetic and degenerative diseases. The advent of pharmacogenomics too, holds promise for an individualized, optimal treatment regime for a large variety of medical conditions. A combination of the benefits of these two technologies creates a new niche in therapeutic medicine research viz. that of stem cell pharm Read More

Most drug responses are determined by the interplay of several gene products that influence pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, i.e., drug metabolizing enzymes, drug transporters, and drug targets. With the sequencing of the human genome, it has been estimated that approximately 500-1200 genes code for drug transporters. Concerning the effects of genetic polymorphisms on pharmacotherapy, the best characteri Read More

Unpredictable efficacy and toxicity are major hurdles in the administration of many medications. By identifying inherited DNA polymorphisms that influence drug disposition and effects, pharmacogenomics is an exciting tool for the individualization of drug therapies. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in genes encoding drug metabolizing enzymes, drug transporters, and DNA repair genes have recently been show Read More

During the last decades, the rapid development in molecular biology has contributed to the understanding of genetic factors underlying many adverse drug reactions. Until recently, most research in this area has focused on genes coding for drug-metabolizing enzymes. Inactivating mutations have been found in genes coding for enzymes belonging to the cytochrome P-450 system, which is the major system for drug Read More

Genetic variation in the human genome occurs predominantly as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Our DNA may contain as many as ten million SNPs, of which three million or more are likely to differ between any two unrelated individuals. These three million genetic differences make a significant contribution to the observed variation in complex human phenotypes, such as disease susceptibility and our responses to dr Read More

Genomic epidemiologic data, increasingly supported by clinical outcomes results, strongly suggest that overactivity of angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) may underlie most age-related diseases. Angiotensin II, the main product of ACE, is a pleiotropic hormone, capable of serving as a neurotransmitter, growth factor, angiogenesis factor, vasoconstrictor, pro-thrombotic agent, and cytokine. So it is perhaps not surprisin Read More

In addition to potential future clinical benefits such as reducing adverse drug reactions and optimizing therapeutic efficacy, pharmacogenomic applications promise numerous benefits for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, including decreasing the size and expense of clinical trials and streamlining the drug development process. The application of pharmacogenomics and related technological advances to dru Read More