Mini Reviews in Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 14, Issue 3, 2014

Organophosphates are used as pesticides or misused as warfare nerve agents. Exposure to them can be fatal and death is usually caused by respiratory arrest. For almost six decades, pyridinium oximes represent a therapeutic tool used for the management of poisoning with organophosphorus (OP) compounds. However, these compounds possess several drawbacks. Firstly, they are inefficient in the restoratio Read More

Despite the enormous advances in the development of new drugs, the efficacy of current antitumor therapies is still quite limited, most likely because of the high degree of cancer heterogeneity and cell signaling complexity. As a single drug does not necessarily eradicate the cancer, the use of drug combinations has been proposed, and numerous studies have already been conducted to examine the efficacy of this strate Read More

The [1,4]benzodiazepine is an important class of heterocyclic compounds and clinically used for many ailments in humans. The [1,4]benzodiazepine has unique structure that mimics the peptide linkage. This interesting observation completely shifted the interest of medicinal chemist for [1,4]benzodiazepine from CNS acting drugs to anticancer agents. During last few decades, a large number of reports have appeared in t Read More

Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is the noncancerous growth of the prostate gland resulting due to overproliferation of the stromal and glandular elements of the prostate and is associated with lower urinary tract symptoms. Natural products, containing inherently vast structural diversity than synthetic compounds, have been the major resources of bioactive agents and will continue to play as protagonists for discovering new d Read More

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characterized by the deposition of amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide in the brains of AD patients. Such a process is linked to the binding of metal ions (e.g., Cu, Fe and Zn) with Aβ. As a result, metal chelation could be used as a rational therapeutic pathway for the treatment of AD. In this review, we address some noteworthy advances on the utilization of metal chelators, such as native metallothioneins and synt Read More

The 1, 4-dihydropyridines (DHPs), a class of drugs possess a wide variety of biological and pharmacological actions. It represents one of the most important groups of calcium-channel modulating agents and has experienced widespread use in the treatment of cardiovascular disease which includes antihypertensive, antianginal, vasodilator and cardiac depressants activities. It also shows antibacterial, anticancer, antileishma Read More

Angiogenesis is a multistep process for the formation of new blood vessels. Interactions between several cellular factors including growth factors, cytokines and hematopoietic factors lead to activation of various cellular pathways finally resulting in the extracellular matrix (ECM) degradation, endothelial cell proliferation, survival and migration. Normally, angiogenesis is an essential requirement for vascular development in gro Read More