Endocrine, Metabolic & Immune Disorders-Drug Targets (Formerly Current Drug Targets - Immune, Endocrine & Metabolic Disorders) - Volume 9, Issue 1, 2009

Diabetes mellitus (diabetes) is suffered by more than 180 million people and is responsible for approximately 2.9 million deaths each year. This mortality rate is expected to increase by 50 % in the next decade. Due to the inconvenience of the traditional treatment of diabetes by subcutaneous administration of insulin injection, various attempts are made in the production, purification, formulation and methods of Read More

Interferon-beta (IFN-β) therapy has a central place in the management of multiple sclerosis (MS). The three recombinant IFN-β preparations currently available have shown benefit on activity measures (relapses and active lesions apparent on magnetic resonance imaging), while therapy advantages on progression measures (disability and total lesion burden) are less consistent. Moreover, IFN-β is effective only in a percen Read More

Women before menopause are at relatively lower risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) compared with agematched men and after menopause this gender advantage disappears. Androgen has been known to be an independent factor contributing to the higher male susceptibility to CVD, through adverse effects on lipids, blood pressure, and glucose metabolism. High androgen levels also contribute to CVD development in Read More

Type 2 diabetes is associated with insulin resistance, endothelial dysfunction and accelerated atherosclerotic diseases. Though underlying mechanisms remain to be unraveled, p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) appears to play important roles in their pathogenesis. As a member of the MAPK family, it regulates the activities of many transcription factors and proteins/enzymes and thus has a wide-spectru Read More

In some mRNA sequences, namely those of formyl peptide receptors and chemokine CXC receptors 4, it has been observed that the second nucleotide (nt) of the coding triplets is significantly more highly conserved than the first nt and the correlation between the conservation indexes of the first two nt is positive and significantly higher than the “basic” correlation usually found between adjacent nt. A theoretical analysis d Read More

β-D-glucans belong to a group of natural, physiologically active compounds, generally called biological response modifiers. Glucans represent highly conserved structural components of cell walls in yeast, fungi, or seaweed. Despite long history of research, the exact mechanisms of glucan action remain unsolved. The present review starts with the history of glucans. Next, the detailed information about the possible glucan sources Read More

Peroxisome proliferator activator-receptor (PPAR)-γ is a ligand-activated transcriptional factor belonging to a steroid receptor superfamily. PPAR-γ plays a role in both adipocyte differentiation and carcinogenesis. Up-date, PPAR-γ is expressed in various cancer tissues, and PPAR-γ ligand induces growth arrest of these cancer cells. In this study, we examined the expression of PPAR-γ in human urological cancer (including renal cell Read More

The ‘histone code’ is a well-established hypothesis describing the idea that specific patterns of post-translational modifications to histones act like a molecular “code” recognised and used by non-histone proteins to regulate specific chromatin functions. One modification which has received significant attention is that of histone acetylation. The enzymes which regulate this modification are described as histone acetyltransfera Read More

No new drugs have been approved for the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) by the Food and Drug Administration for the last 30 years. One barrier has been the lack of validated biomarkers and surrogate endpoints. Validation of SLE biomarkers in the past have been methodologically flawed. We put forth a conceptual framework and five critical criterion for validating putative biomarkers and bio-surro Read More