Search results for "Drug design"
showing 10 items of 232 documents
Novel cell culture systems for the hepatitis C virus.
2001
Infections with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) are a major cause of acute and chronic liver disease. The high prevalence of the virus, the insidious course of the disease and the poor prognosis for long-term persistent infection make this pathogen a serious medical and socioeconomical problem. The identification of the viral genome approximately 10 years ago rapidly led to the delineation of the genomic organization and the structural and biochemical characterization of several virus proteins. However, studies of the viral life cycle as well as the development of antiviral drugs have been difficult because of the lack of a robust and reliable cell culture system. Numerous attempts have been un…
Atrial natriuretic factor, but not oxytocin, is present in atherosclerotic plaques of human common carotid arteries
2010
We performed a study on 25 common carotid arteries (CCA) affected by atherosclerotic plaques, comparing them to 25 normal CCA. We researched the presence and localisation of atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) and oxytocin (OX) by immunohistochemistry. We found ANF abundantly expressed in plaques, mainly localising in intima and subintima layers; by contrast normal vessels were scarcely positive or negative; finally, OX resulted negative or weakly positive in both atherosclerotic and normal vessels. Our results show for the first time ANF presence in atherosclerotic plaques of CCA and are in agreement with other studies, mainly performed in vitro, that hypothesise the involvement of this molecu…
Antitumoural properties of benzannelated seven-membered 5-fluorouracil derivatives and related open analogues. Molecular markers for apoptosis and ce…
2005
Attention is increasingly being focussed on the cell cycle and apoptosis as potential targets for therapeutic intervention in cancer. We prepared a series of bioisosteric benzannelated seven-membered 5-FU O,N-acetals to test them against the MCF-7 human breast cancer cell line. Benzo-fused seven-membered O,O-acetals or their acyclic analogues led to the expected 5-FU O,N-acetals (or aminals), in addition to six- and 14-membered aminal structures and acyclic compounds. All the cyclic aminals provoked a G0/G1-phase cell cycle arrest, whereas Ftorafur, a known prodrug of 5-FU, and 1-[2-(2-hydroxymethyl-4-nitrophenoxy)-1-methoxyethyl]-5-fluorouracil (11) induced an S-phase cell cycle arrest. Al…
Comparative analysis of virtual screening approaches in the search for novel EphA2 receptor antagonists
2015
The EphA2 receptor and its ephrin-A1 ligand form a key cell communication system, which has been found overexpressed in many cancer types and involved in tumor growth. Recent medicinal chemistry efforts have identified bile acid derivatives as low micromolar binders of the EphA2 receptor. However, these compounds suffer from poor physicochemical properties, hampering their use in vivo. The identification of compounds able to disrupt the EphA2-ephrin-A1 complex lacking the bile acid scaffold may lead to new pharmacological tools suitable for in vivo studies. To identify the most promising virtual screening (VS) protocol aimed at finding novel EphA2 antagonists, we investigated the ability of…
New polyamine drugs as more effective antichagas agents than benznidazole in both the acute and chronic phases.
2018
Abstract Despite the continuous research effort that has been made in recent years to find ways to treat the potentially life threatening Chagas disease (CD), this remains the third most important infectious disease in Latin America. CD is an important public health problem affecting 6–7 million people. Since the need to search for new drugs for the treatment of DC persists, in this article we present a panel of new polyamines based on the tripodal structure of tris(2-aminomethyl)amine (tren) that can be prepared at low cost with high yields. Moreover, these polyamines present the characteristic of being water-soluble and resistant to the acidic pH values of stomach, which would allow their…
Synthesis and anti-inflammatory activity of chalcone derivatives
1998
Chalcones and their derivatives were synthesized and evaluated for their anti-inflammatory activity. In vitro, chalcones 2, 4, 8, 10 and 13 inhibited degranulation and 5-lipoxygenase in human neutrophils, whereas 11 behaved as scavenger of superoxide. Only four compounds (4-7) inhibited cyclo-oxygenase-2 activity. The majority of these samples showed anti-inflammatory effects in the mouse air pouch model.
Getting discriminant functions of antibacterial activity from physicochemical and topological parameters.
2001
Linear discriminant analysis has been demonstrated to be a very useful tool in the selection and design of new drugs. Up to now we have used it through the search of a topological pattern of activity. In this work our goal is to calculate a complete set of physicochemical parameters using semiempirical (quantum chemical) calculations as well as topological indices (TIs) and try to find out any discriminant function for antibacterial activity through the combined use of both types of descriptors. The physicochemical parameters, such as heat of formation, HOMO, LUMO, dipole moment, polarizability, hyperpolarizability, PM3 generated IR vibrational frequencies, etc., were calculated using PM3 H…
Computational strategies for the design of new enzymatic functions
2015
In this contribution, recent developments in the design of biocatalysts are reviewed with particular emphasis in the de novo strategy. Studies based on three different reactions, Kemp elimination, Diels–Alder and Retro-Aldolase, are used to illustrate different success achieved during the last years. Finally, a section is devoted to the particular case of designed metalloenzymes. As a general conclusion, the interplay between new and more sophisticated engineering protocols and computational methods, based on molecular dynamics simulations with Quantum Mechanics/Molecular Mechanics potentials and fully flexible models, seems to constitute the bed rock for present and future successful desig…
Atherosclerosis as an inflammatory disease.
2011
In many ways, atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disorder and this issue is confirmed by recent investigations of that have focused on inflammation, providing new insight into mechanisms of disease. Several recent studies have addressed the role of chemokines in leukocyte accumulation in atherosclerosis, extending our knowledge and understanding of the complex and cell type-specific functions of chemokines in atherosclerosis. Activated T-lymphocytes within the atherosclerotic vessel wall express the CD40 ligand surface molecule, known to play a major role in several immunological pathways. In addition to activated T-lymphocytes, functional CD40 and CD40L are coexpressed by human vasc…
New Strategy for the Stereoselective Synthesis of Fluorinated β-Amino Acids
2002
Racemic and chiral nonracemic alpha-substituted and alpha-unsubstituted beta-fluoroalkyl beta-amino acid derivatives 6 and 9 have been synthesized in two steps starting from fluorinated imidoyl chlorides 1 and ester enolates. This approach is based on the chemical reduction of previously obtained gamma-fluorinated beta-enamino esters 4 by using ZnI(2)/NaBH(4) in a nonchelated aprotic medium (dry CH(2)Cl(2)) as the reducing agent. A metal-chelated six-membered model has been suggested to explain the stereochemical outcome of the reduction reaction. The process takes place with high yields and with moderate to good diastereoselectivity. The best results related to diastereoselective reduction…