Mini Reviews in Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 10, Issue 14, 2010

Histamine is a biomolecular compound located in various parts of body. It participated in various important cellular activities associated with allergy and asthma. This magic bio-molecule is directly and indirectly involved in various biochemical reactions through G-protein couple receptors. Various histamine receptors and their unexplored biochemical activities attracted many biologists in last few decades. A surprising discovery of Read More

Host intracellular iron has been recognized as an important cofactor in induction of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH)-dependent oxidative burst as antimicrobial defense mechanism. It is plausible that iron chelator directly inactivates NADPH oxidase by chelating the active site heme iron of flavocytochrome b558 thus blocking the transfer of electrons from NADPH to oxygen and its reduction to super Read More

A large number of therapeutic medications have undesirable properties that may generate pharmacological, pharmaceutical, or pharmacokinetic barriers in clinical drug applications. Metabolism of drugs by Phase-I & Phase-II metabolic pathways for possibility of active metabolites, which could in turn useful for rational designing of bioprecursor prodrugs of the active principle of interest. This review summarizes various approac Read More

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), caused by human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection, is still one of the most challenging diseases of the early 21st century. Reverse transcriptase (RT), protease (PR) and integrase (IN) are three key enzymes of HIV-1. Despite the shortcomings of chemical drugs such as toxicity, lack of curative and multiple effects, the search for more and better anti-HIV agents ha Read More

The productions and applications of various microbial exopolysaccharides have been under intensive researches over the past few decades. Some of these exopolysaccharides are commercial available and some are currently under intensive development; they include ionic heteropolysaccharide and neutral homopolysaccharide. These extracellular polymers constitute a structurally diverse class of biological Read More

Endometrial Cancer is the most frequent tumor in western world nations, with 142,000 new cases each year and 42,000 casualties. This form of cancer typically affects women between 55 and 65 years of age, and ranks fourth among female tumors. Endogenous predisposing conditions to endometrial cancer development are: late menopause, early menarche and hyperestrogenism, while hormone replacement therapy, ob Read More

The renin angiotensin system (RAS) plays an important role in regulation of blood pressure and fluidelectrolyte homeostasis. The renin-angiotensin system consists of a cascade of enzymatic reactions producing angiotensin II (Ang II). Ang II is a vasoconstrictive peptide hormone that exerts a wide variety of physiological actions on cardiovascular, renal, endocrine and central nervous systems. The RAS can be inhibited at vario Read More

Somatic genetic and epigenetic alterations have been suggested to be crucially involved in development and progression of cancers including prostate cancer (PCa). Epigenetic alterations such as chemical modification of chromatin associated proteins and DNA methylation can largely affect gene expression that may be important for early normal organ development, and also produces favorable conditions for cancer c Read More

Chemiluminescence has traditionally been used to study the nature of the oxidative bactericidal mechanisms of neutrophils and monocytes, intrinsic defects of abnormally functioning neutrophils or monocytes and cell activation. During the last ten years, Chemiluminescence has been applied in a wide variety of techniques, including immunoassays, protein blotting and toxicological and pharmacological tests (e.g. after Read More