Mini Reviews in Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 5, Issue 4, 2005

While the post-genomic era could lead into new targets for antimalarial drug development, herein few successful targets including medicinals involved in those processes are presented. Further, contribution of bioinorganic chemistry has also started to make its impact in the field of pharmaceuticals. Therefore, metal chelators, selected organometallics, and metalloantimalarials that would offer potential therapeutic Read More

In this paper, the main achievements and problems of the application of all-atom molecular simulations, with particular attention for Molecular Dynamics (MD), will be critically reviewed. Starting from unfolding simulations, through biased simulations, which require a knowledge of the native state conformation, to folding studies based on the simple knowledge of the protein (or peptide) sequence, the strengths and weakness Read More

Prion diseases are of considerable importance because of the threat of a variant form of Creutzfeldt Jakob disease that has emerged in recent years. Pre-clinical diagnosis of prion diseases still remains poor and effective therapies also do not exist at present. This review examines research on possible therapeutic strategies that might have potential benefits if applied before neurodegeneration has occurred.

1,2,4-Thiadiazole is a distinctive class of small heterocyclic thiol trapping agents that serve as an interesting pharmacophore in the design of inhibitors targeting the cysteine residues of proteins. X-Ray crystal structures of enzyme-inhibitor complex indicate that the cysteine thiol reacts with the N-S bond of the thiadiazole moiety to form a disulfide bond resulting in the inactivation of the enzymes. This review addresses t Read More

Endothelins (ETs) are potent vasoconstrictor peptides and are associated with several disease states like pulmonary hypertension, systemic hypertension and heart failure. Endothelin-1 (ET-1) is the first member of the family and it has the receptor subtypes known as ETA and ETB. The receptors ETA and ETB are attractive new therapeutic targets for diseases associated with elevated ET-1 levels. Several studies have thu Read More

Imidazole and benzimidazole systems are presented in a large number of common therapeutics agents. They were widely used in organic and medicinal chemistry, but recently the development of N-oxide derivatives got an improvement from the point of view of its chemical and biological activity. Though we will review recent developments in chemical and biological profiles (as antitumoral, antiparasitic, antiviral and antimi Read More