Mini-Reviews in Organic Chemistry - Volume 10, Issue 4, 2013

Drug addiction is a public health and social burden. Presently, the most abused illicit substance is cannabis, followed by amphetamines, cocaine and opioids, with different prevalence in different countries. Several evidences support a role for oxidative stress in the toxicity induced by many drugs of abuse in different organs, such as the brain, heart, liver or kidneys. This leads to oxidation of important cellular macromolecules, and Read More

Several studies have attempted to clarify molecular pathways leading to drug addiction. Increased reactive oxygen species production in the central nervous system has been recently proposed to play a pivotal role in the neuropathology induced by drug abuse. In this review, we summarize current knowledge on the involvement of oxidative stress in the development of neural dysfunctions induced by prolonged e Read More

Oxidative Stress, deriving from a perturbation of the cellular balance between pro-oxidant and anti-oxidant molecules, has been involved in the patho-physiology of multiple diseases, and anti-oxidant supplementation are largely studied for therapeutic purposes. The Cannabis sativa derivates, the cannabinoids (CBs), are widely used as a recreational drug, but pharmacological activities also prompt to therapeutic use. Read More

Methamphetamine and 3, 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine are psychoactive recreational hallucinogenic substances with considerable CNS stimulatory effects. Acute or sub-chronic exposure to METH or MDMA can damage several organs. Many different organs may be involve. There is evidence for neurotoxicity, cardiotoxicity, hepatotoxicity and nephrotoxicity. Many of these mechanisms are complex and difficult to expl Read More

Opiates are the most effective treatment for acute and chronic severe pain. However, for the fact that they provoke the development of analgesic tolerance as observed in human studies, their clinical utility is often lower. Morphine is a principal opiate, but to get an equivalent pain relief with it, the doses of administration need to be constantly increasing. However, such dose increase has a therapeutic impact by on setting morp Read More

Morphine exhibits important pharmacological effects for which it has been used in medical practice for quite a long time. However, it has a high addictive potential and can be abused. Long-term use of this drug can be connected with some pathological consequences including neurotoxicity and neuronal dysfunction, hepatotoxicity, kidney dysfunction, oxidative stress and apoptosis. Therefore, most studies examining the imp Read More

Cocaine is one of the principal drugs of abuse, it is an illegal psychostimulant, and the chronic consumption of cocaine causes damage in a range of body organs. Cocaine is known to undergo metabolism through multiple enzymatic pathways leading to the formation of several highly reactive species, which have been proposed to exert a direct toxic effect in the organs. All its metabolites may be involved in the activation of re Read More

Alcohol consumption and tobacco smoking are the most common co-abused drugs in the world. They are not only deleterious by themselves to the health of individuals, but they also act synergistically in worsening several disease conditions. Numerous studies have shown that cancer of various organs such as liver and lungs, as well as many disease conditions such as cardiovascular and neurodegenerative involve both alcohol a Read More

The aim of this review is to discuss the evidence on the potential role of oxidative stress in the mechanisms of AAS-induced toxicity. The adverse effects of chronic consumption of supraphysiological doses of AAS include endocrine, behavioral, hepatic, renal and cardiovascular abnormalities; this is of considerable importance because of the wellknown AAS abuse by adolescent bodybuilders and athletes and the emergence of Read More

Linus Pauling has assumed that certain molecules such as functional monomers make self-organized structures around another particle called a molecular template or stamp. Although this theory has proved to be wrong in terms suggested by Pauling, it became the basis for the synthesis of entirely new materials named molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) which entered with great dynamics in the world of science in the e Read More

Our research group has published numerous papers over the last three years on the reaction of nitrile oxides and azomethine ylide with unsaturated tricyclic N-substituted dicarboximides selected according to the importance of possible biological activities. These reactions cover full range of mechanistic pathways and timings of bond-forming processes to give five-membered ring closure by 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition.