Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 2, Issue 3, 2006

Bisphosphonates are now well established as successful agents for the prevention and treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis and corticosteroid-induced bone loss. Bisphosphonates have also recently become important in the management of cancer-induced bone disease, and they now have a widely recognized role for patients with multiple myeloma and bone metastases secondary to breast cancer and prosta Read More

The aim of this study was to investigate cellular response to several ruthenium(III), chromium(III) and rhodium(III) compounds carrying bidentate β-diketonato ligands: [(acac)-acetylacetonate ligand, (tfac)- trifluoroacetylacetonate ligand]. Cell sensitivity studies were performed on several cell lines (A2780, cisplatin-sensitive and -resistant U2-OS and U2-OS/Pt, HeLa, B16) using growth-inhibition assay. Effect of intracellular GSH Read More

Sorbitol dehydrogenase (SDH) is the second enzyme in the polyol pathway of glucose metabolism and is a possible target for the treatment of the complications of diabetes. In this study the molecular modelling program DOCK was used to analyse 249,071 compounds from the National Cancer Institute Database and predict those with high affinity for SDH. From a total of 21 tested the 7 compounds including flavin adenine dinucl Read More

A quantitative structure-activity relationship study has been conducted on two different series of acyclic hydroxamic acid analogs acting as matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) inhibitors. The results suggest that in a few cases, the hydrophobic property of the molecules is the major governing factor. However, in some cases, the polarizability of the molecules is shown to be dominant. The two enzymes, MMP-9 and MMP-13, are Read More

Lipoxygenase plays an essential role in the biosynthesis of the leukotrienes. Leukotrienes, as LO metabolites of arachidonic acid (AA), have been implicated as mediators in the pathophysiology of inflammatory diseases, host defense reactions and to play important role in the propagation of the diseases states, exacerbating the local events and ultimately leading to tissue damage. Simple stable molecules containing the hydr Read More

Angiotensin II (Ang II) elicits numerous inflammatory-proliferative responses in vascular cells, thereby being involved in atherosclerosis. We have previously shown that pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF) blocks the Ang IIinduced endothelial cell activation, thus suggesting that PEDF may play a role in atherosclerosis. However, effects of PEDF on T cell activation, another key steps of atherosclerosis, remain to be elucidate Read More

Hemorrhagic shock followed by resuscitation (HSR) induces oxidative stress that leads to acute lung injury. Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), the rate-limiting enzyme in heme catabolism, is induced by oxidative stress and is thought to play an important role in the protection from oxidative tissue injuries. We previously demonstrated that HO-1 induction by heme arginate (HA), a strong inducer of HO-1, ameliorated HSR-induced lu Read More

The phytochemical resveratrol has been reported to induce NQO1, an enzyme involved in detoxification reactions, by as yet undetermined mechanisms. Using K562 cells as a model, we showed that 25-50 μM resveratrol increased NQO1 that peaked at 24-48 h. A 2.5-fold rise in NQO1 protein levels was accompanied by a comparable elevation in mRNA copy number and a 3- to 5-fold increase in NQO1 enzymatic activit Read More

M. tuberculosis, M. bovis and M. avium infections cause the most important mycobacterioses leading to increased mortality in patients with AIDS. Various 5-substituted 2'-deoxyuridines, arabinouridines, arabinocytidines and 2'-arabinofluoro-2'-deoxyuridines were synthesized and evaluated for their in vitro inhibitory activity against M. bovis, M. tuberculosis and M. avium. 5-(C-1 Substituted)-2'-deoxyuridine derivatives emerged a Read More

Two novel RGDF mimetics were synthesized with the use of 4-(1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-isoquinoline-7-yl)amino-4- oxo-butyric acid as a new surrogate of Arg-Gly motif. The synthesized compounds have demonstrated a high potency to inhibit platelet aggregation in vitro and to block FITC-Fg binding to αIIbβ3 on washed human platelets.

This study evaluated and compared the effect of insulin treatment on the status of brain, heart and kidney mitochondria isolated from 12-week streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats versus STZ-diabetic animals treated with insulin during a period of 4 weeks. Mitochondria isolated from 12-week citrate (vehicle)-treated rats were used as control. Several mitochondrial parameters were evaluated: respiratory indexes (stat Read More

Flexible alignment and docking studies were conducted for the three octapeptides, ATLQANEV, AVLQSGFR, and ATLQAIAS, that were cleavable by SARS-CoV Mpro. It has been observed that all pharmacophores of the three peptides overlap very well, and that ATLQANEV binds best with the receptor, followed by AVLQSGFR, and then ATLQAIAS. During the process of docking the octapeptides to the SARS enzyme, the residues Read More

Increased attention has centered on exploiting hypoxia in tumors for targeting the design of selective antitumor agents. This review presents an update of the principal families of compounds under study and in clinical trials, such as Noxide derivatives, nitro compounds and quinone derivatives. Especially promising for bioreductive activation is the reduction of some moieties able to trigger a mechanism that releases Read More