Mini Reviews in Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 7, Issue 8, 2007

Research into the endocannabinoid signaling system has grown exponentially in recent years following the discovery of cannabinoid receptors (CB) and their endogenous ligands, such as anandamide (AEA) and 2- arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG). Important advances have been made in our understanding of the endocannabinoid signaling system in various aspects of alcoholism, including alcohol-seeking behavior. Alcohol incr Read More

Accumulating evidence indicates that cancer is maintained by cancer stem cells (CSC). The goal of molecular imaging is to detect pathologic biomarkers, which can lead to early recognition of cancer, better therapeutic management, and improved monitoring for recurrence. The main focus of this review is to describe the different classes of tracers, contrast agents and dyers, and their putative application to improve c Read More

The aim of this review is precisely to give a comprehensive account of the large volume of work carried out on 1,4-diazepines regardless of the degree of unsaturation in the diazepine system. This review mainly emphasizes recent work on the diazepines also including earlier work.

We describe synthesis of α-methylated analogues of the natural polyamines and their use as tools in unraveling polyamine functions. Experiments with α-methylated spermidine and spermine revealed that the polyamines are exchangeable in supporting cellular growth. Degradation of the analogues by polyamine oxidase disclosed hidden, aldehydeguided stereospecificity of the enzyme.

Histamine is a neurotransmitter and neuromodulator within the central nervous system that affects the regulation of food intake and obesity. This review focuses on the roles of neuronal histamine and its receptors in regulating food intake and obesity.

There has been a renewed interest to the application of natural products derived from cruciferous plants and members of Allium genus in chemoprevention of cancer. The potential chemopreventive properties of these vegetables have been attributed to the presence of high level of organosulfur compounds in these plants. Organosulfur compounds have been shown to exert diverse biological effects such as: (a) indu Read More

Acute infection due to hepatitis C virus results in a chronic progression in 50-84% of cases. In the light of the risk of developing chronic disease and the response rate to treatment once the disease is established, it is very important to consider early treatment of acute hepatitis C before it progresses to the chronic form. The aim of this review is to evaluate the real efficacy and tolerance of Peg-interferon alfa-2b in monoth Read More

FTY720, the pharmacological analog of S1P, acts as an agonist of sphingosine-1-phosphate receptors, resulting in the inhibition of lymphocyte egress from secondary lymphoid tissues and thymocytes from the thymus, peripheral lymphopenia and interfering with normal functions of several other cell types. FTY720 has been clinically tried for transplantation and multiple sclerosis, showing promising protective effects. This rev Read More

Large libraries of chemical compounds reflect the exponentially growing data-enrichment in drug discovery that trends towards fully automated informatics solutions to study structure - activity relationships by screening docked ligand candidates to biological target structures. We review otherwise disseminated user descriptions of mainly public databases with free access and also our integrated data mining tool GPDBnet Read More

The main function of the innate immune system from insects to mammals is to detect the presence of and act against invading microorganisms by recognizing their unique molecular signatures, most importantly, components of bacterial cell walls. A large number of peptides and derivatives, both synthetic and of natural origin, are known to influence immune responses in mammals by interacting with the conserved microbial Read More

Ovarian hormone deficiency status is associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, suggesting that estrogen might exhibit a favorable cardiovascular effect. Estrogen has a multitude of beneficial biological effects on surrogate markers of cardiovascular disease that may account for this hypothesis. However, none of the randomized trials already conducted with hormone replacement therapy showed over Read More