Mini Reviews in Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 8, Issue 11, 2008

Advanced drug delivery systems try to adjust the site and/or the rate of the release to the physiological conditions of the patient, to the progression of the illness, or to the circadian rhythms. Being different from classical preprogrammed controlled release dosage forms, the new devices aim to provide the drug release profile best for the needs of each patient. Intelligent drug delivery systems are mostly based on stimuli-respons Read More

There has been considerable in vivo evidence that chemokine receptor CXCR4 and its endogenous ligand CXCL12 modulate some important physiological and pathophysiological processes, including cancer metastasis, angiogenesis, invasion, growth and progression. In this review we elucidate key aspects of CXCL12-CXCR4 signaling system with emphasis on peptide-based and small-molecule CXCR4 inhibitors.

Depsipeptides are a large group of natural products produced by fungi, actinomycetes, cyanobacteria, higher plants and marine organisms. This family of compounds is known to exhibit a wide range of biological activities, and thanks to the progress of isolation techniques and the advances of methods for structure determination, the numbers of depsipeptides having both unique structures and attractive biological activities are Read More

Transcription factors are an important group of proteins. Changes in expression or activity of transcription factors result in diverse and manifold effects on the whole transcriptome of the cell. Therefore transcription factors are of special interest in physiological as well as pathological processes particularly tumour development and progression. In this review we focus on Ets-1, the prototype of the ETS family of transcri Read More

Numerous numbers of biologically active agents have been identified for their diverse therapeutic functions. Detailed investigations of phytochemicals for antiviral activities have assumed greater importance in the last few decades. A wide variety of active phytochemicals, including the flavonoids, terpenoids, organosulfur compounds, limonoids, lignans, sulphides, polyphenolics, coumarins, saponins, chlorophyllins, fu Read More

Tabun (O-ethyl-N,N-dimethyl phosphoramidocyanidate) belongs to highly toxic organophosphorus compounds misused as chemical warfare agents for military as well as terroristic purposes. The antidotal treatment of tabun acute poisonings still represents a serious problem and the development of new, more effective AChE reactivators to achieve the satisfactorily effective antidotal treatment of acute poisonings wit Read More

Chronically-elevated blood glucose initiates a harmful series of processes in which toxic reactive species play crucial roles. Oxidative as well as nitro-oxidative stress is harmful for virtually all biomolecules including lipids, proteins and DNA. Such pathophysiologic mechanisms eventually results in cellular dysfunction, apoptosis or necrosis. Melatonin is a multifunctional indolamine which counteracts several pathophysiologi Read More

The structures of caspases reveal the mechanism of binding for non-peptide and protein inhibitors, and have been applied in the design of agents that either inhibit or activate caspases to control cell death in diverse diseases. Decreased cell death is desirable for treatment of stroke, nerve crush injury, myocardial infarction, neuromuscular and neurodegenerative diseases and several non-peptide caspase inhibitors have be Read More

G-quadruplex structures are promising targets for design of cancer drugs with high selectivity and low toxicity. This review provides an update of the progress made over the last few years in the design of selective G-quadruplex ligands, and a comprehensive summary of the major design strategies and structural characteristics.