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Topic Review
Genus Mentha
Mint (Mentha species) exhibits multiple health beneficial properties, such as prevention from cancer development and anti-obesity, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, and cardioprotective effects, as a result of its antioxidant potential, combined with low toxicity and high efficacy. Mentha species are widely used in savory dishes, food, beverages, and confectionary products. Phytochemicals derived from mint also showed anticancer activity against different types of human cancers such as cervix, lung, breast and many others. Mint essential oils show a great cytotoxicity potential, by modulating MAPK and PI3k/Akt pathways; they also induce apoptosis, suppress invasion and migration potential of cancer cells lines along with cell cycle arrest, upregulation of Bax and p53 genes, modulation of TNF, IL-6, IFN-γ, IL-8, and induction of senescence phenotype. Essential oils from mint have also been found to exert antibacterial activities against Bacillus subtilis, Streptococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and many others.
  • 1.5K
  • 18 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Biological Effects of Natural Acylated Flavonoids
Acylated flavonoids are widely distributed natural metabolites in medicinal plants and foods with several health attributes. Flavonoids are secondary metabolites that are widely distributed in planta, and they are well recognized for their health benefits, viz., anticancer, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and as neuro- and cardio-protective effects. Flavonoids are phytochemicals comprising a benzopyrone ring bearing a phenolic or poly-phenolic group at different positions, classified based on their chemical structure, degree of unsaturation, and oxidation of carbon ring, viz., anthoxanthins (flavanone and flavanol), flavanones, flavanonols, flavans, chalcones, anthocyanidins, and isoflavonoids.
  • 1.5K
  • 14 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Naphthoquinones and Their Derivatives
In the current era, an ever-emerging threat of multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens pose serious health challenges to mankind. Researchers are uninterruptedly putting their efforts to design and develop alternative, innovative strategies to tackle the antibiotic resistance displayed by varied pathogens. Among several naturally derived and chemically synthesized compounds, quinones have achieved a distinct position to defeat microbial pathogens.
  • 1.5K
  • 27 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Allosteric GABAA Receptor Modulators
Among the mammalian ligand-gated ion channels, the GABAA receptor family comprises the largest family with subunits encoded by 19 different genes. Some of these undergo alternative splicing, and, thereby, increase the variety. Their endogenous ligand known as the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) has been established as the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system.
  • 1.5K
  • 29 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Ligands for Alzheimer’s Disease therapy
Despite tremendous research efforts at every level, globally, there is still a lack of effectivedrugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The biochemical mechanisms of this devastatingneurodegenerative disease are not yet clearly understood. This review analyses the relevance ofmultiple ligands in drug discovery for AD as a versatile toolbox for a polypharmacological approachto AD. Herein, we highlight major targets associated with AD, ranging from acetylcholine esterase(AChE), beta-site amyloid precursor protein cleaving enzyme 1 (BACE-1), glycogen synthase kinase3 beta ( GSK-3β), N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor, monoamine oxidases (MAOs), metal ions inthe brain, 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) receptors, the third subtype of histamine receptor (H3 receptor),to phosphodiesterases (PDEs), along with a summary of their respective relationship to the diseasenetwork. In addition, a multitarget strategy for AD is presented, based on reported milestones in thisarea and the recent progress that has been achieved with multitargeted-directed ligands (MTDLs).Finally, the latest publications referencing the enlarged panel of new biological targets for AD relatedto the microglia are highlighted. However, the question of how to find meaningful combinations oftargets for an MTDLs approach remains unanswered.
  • 1.5K
  • 04 Aug 2020
Topic Review
Xanthone Glucosides
Xanthones are secondary metabolites found in plants, fungi, lichens, and bacteria froma variety of families and genera, with the majority found in the Gentianaceae, Polygalaceae, and Clusiaceae. They have a diverse range of bioactivities, including anti-oxidant, anti-bacterial, antimalarial, anti-tuberculosis, and cytotoxic properties. Xanthone glucosides are a significant branch of xanthones. After glycosylation, xanthones may have improved characteristics (such as solubility and pharmacological activity). Currently, no critical review of xanthone glucosides has been published.
  • 1.5K
  • 25 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Plants with Antiviral Properties
Phytochemicals have been used as antiviral agents against several viruses since they could inhibit via different mechanisms, either at the viral entry point or the replication stages and also immunomodulation potentials. 
  • 1.5K
  • 19 May 2021
Topic Review
Molecular Hybridization of Alkaloids Using 1,2,3-Triazole-Based Click Chemistry
Alkaloids found in multiple species, known as ‘driver species’, are more likely to be included in early-stage drug development due to their high biodiversity compared to rare alkaloids. Many synthetic approaches have been employed to hybridize the natural alkaloids in drug development. Click chemistry is a highly efficient and versatile reaction targeting specific areas, making it a valuable tool for creating complex natural products and diverse molecular structures. It has been used to create hybrid alkaloids that address their limitations and serve as potential drugs that mimic natural products.
  • 1.5K
  • 22 Nov 2023
Topic Review
Iron Oxide Nanoparticles in Biomedicine
Iron oxides are common natural compounds and can also easily be synthesized in the laboratory. There are 16 iron oxides, including oxides, hydroxides and oxide-hydroxides. These minerals are a result of aqueous reactions under various redox and pH conditions. They have the basic composition of Fe,O, and/or OH, but differ in the valency of iron and overall crystal structure. Some of the important iron oxides are goethite, akaganeite, lepidocrocite, magnetite and hematite.  Iron oxide (IO) nanoparticles consist of maghemite (y-Fe2O3) and/or magnetite (Fe3O4) particles with diameters ranging from 1 and 100 nanometer and find applications in magnetic data storage, biosensing, drug-delivery, etc. In nanoparticles (NPs), the surface area to volume ratio increases significantly. This allows a considerably higher binding capacity and excelent dispersibility of NPs in solutions. Magnetic NPs, with sizes between 2 and 20 nm display superparamagnetism, i.e. their magnetization is zero, in the absence of an external magnetic field and they can be magnetized by an extermal magnetic source. This property provides additional stability for magnetic nanparticles in solutions.  Because of their magnetic and superparamagnetic properties, iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) have many potential applications for medical use. The synthesis of these NPs has been the basis of many studies, each proposing different synthesis methods yielding nanostructures of different properties. The chemical, physical and magnetic properties of these nanostructures are examined to determine their possible application in mgnetic resonance imaging (MRI), contrast enhancement and thermal activation therapy. NPs characterization and demonstration of their potential uses pave  the way to the development of smart magnetic IONPs for targeted diagnostics and therapeutics of human diseases, including cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. Using the proprietary monoloyer polymer coating strategy, hydrophobic, organic ligand-coated IONPs have successfully been converted into water soluble, bio-accessible IONPs. Recent enhancement in the quality of both organic and water soluble IONPs opens avenues of opportunities for development of IO nanoparticles based applications, for example:  ·         As contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)  ·         As drug carriers for target specific drug delivery  ·         As gene carriers for gene therapy ·         As therapeutic agents for hyperthermia based cancer treatments ·         As magnetic sensing probes for in-vitro diagnostics (IVD) ·         As nanoadjuvant for vaccine and antibody production.  This growing portfolio of magnetic NPs excited us to offer a brief review on the biologically compatible IONPs synthesized by electrochemical deposition, and their potential use in biomedical application. 
  • 1.5K
  • 21 Jan 2021
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Molecular Filters in Medicinal Chemistry
Efficient chemical library design for high-throughput virtual screening and drug design requires a pre-screening filter pipeline capable of labeling aggregators, pan-assay interference compounds (PAINS), and rapid elimination of swill (REOS); identifying or excluding covalent binders; flagging moieties with specific bio-evaluation data; and incorporating physicochemical and pharmacokinetic properties early in the design without compromising the diversity of chemical moieties present in the library. This adaptation of the chemical space results in greater enrichment of hit lists, identified compounds with greater potential for further optimization, and efficient use of computational time. A number of medicinal chemistry filters have been implemented in the Konstanz Information Miner (KNIME) software and analyzed their impact on testing representative libraries with chemoinformatic analysis. It was found that the analyzed filters can effectively tailor chemical libraries to a lead-like chemical space, identify protein–protein inhibitor-like compounds, prioritize oral bioavailability, identify drug-like compounds, and effectively label unwanted scaffolds or functional groups. However, one should be cautious in their application and carefully study the chemical space suitable for the target and general medicinal chemistry campaign, and review passed and labeled compounds before taking further in silico steps.
  • 1.5K
  • 24 Apr 2023
Topic Review
Adjuvants for New Anti-Tuberculosis Vaccines
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) that sits in the top 10 leading causes of death in the world today and is the current leading cause of death among infectious diseases. Although there is a licensed vaccine against TB, the Mycobacterium bovis bacilli Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccine, it has several limitations, namely its high variability of efficacy in the population and low protection against pulmonary tuberculosis. New vaccines for TB are needed. The World Health Organization (WHO) considers the development and implementation of new TB vaccines to be a priority. Subunit vaccines are promising candidates since they can overcome safety concerns and optimize antigen targeting. Nevertheless, these vaccines need adjuvants in their formulation in order to increase immunogenicity, decrease the needed antigen dose, ensure a targeted delivery and optimize the antigens delivery and interaction with the immune cells. 
  • 1.4K
  • 10 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Crystalline Peroxosolvates
Peroxosolvates - adducts of hydrogen peroxide and molecules or salts formed by hydrogen bonding.
  • 1.4K
  • 19 Jan 2021
Topic Review
Progress of Natural Product Databases
Natural products (NPs) are a rich source of structurally novel molecules, and the chemical space they encompass is far from being fully explored. NPs have represented a significant source of bioactive molecules and have served as a source of inspiration for developing many drugs on the market. Computer-aided drug design (CADD) has contributed to drug discovery research, mitigating costs and time. In this sense, compound databases represent a fundamental element of CADD. 
  • 1.4K
  • 08 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Anticancer Profile of Rhodanines
The rhodanine derivatives are small compounds with a broad spectrum of biological activities; they are used as antimicrobial, antiviral, antitubercular, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, and antitumor agents. In the pharmaceutical market, epalrestat (rhodanine-3-acetic acid) has been marketed in Japan since 1992 for treatment of diabetic complications (peripheral neuropathy). Epalrestat is an inhibitor of aldose reductase, the key enzyme in the polyol pathway of glucose metabolism under hyperglycemic conditions. The good clinical safety profile of epalrestat justified the interest of the researchers in rhodanines as potential drug candidates.
  • 1.4K
  • 20 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Applying CADD for Neurodegenerative Diseases
Neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Huntington’s disease are incurable and affect millions of people worldwide. The development of treatments for this unmet clinical need is a major global research challenge. Computer-aided drug design (CADD) methods minimize the huge number of ligands that could be screened in biological assays, reducing the cost, time, and effort required to develop new drugs. 
  • 1.4K
  • 07 May 2021
Topic Review
Benchmarking Data Sets
Developing realistic data sets for evaluating virtual screening methods is a task that has been tackled by the cheminformatics community for many years. Numerous artificially constructed data collections were developed, such as DUD, DUD-E, or DEKOIS. However, they all suffer from multiple drawbacks, one of which is the absence of experimental results confirming the impotence of presumably inactive molecules, leading to possible false negatives in the ligand sets. In light of this problem, the PubChem BioAssay database, an open-access repository providing the bioactivity information of compounds that were already tested on a biological target, is now a recommended source for data set construction. Nevertheless, there exist several issues with the use of such data that need to be properly addressed. In this article, an overview of benchmarking data collections built upon experimental PubChem BioAssay input is provided, along with a thorough discussion of noteworthy issues that one must consider during the design of new ligand sets from this database. The points raised in this review are expected to guide future developments in this regard, in hopes of offering better evaluation tools for novel in silico screening procedures.
  • 1.4K
  • 26 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Smart Contrast Agents in MRI
Zinc and copper are essential cations involved in numerous biological processes; and variations in their concentrations can cause diseases; such as neurodegenerative diseases; diabetes and cancers. Hence, the detection and quantification of these cations is of utmost importance for the early diagnosis of disease. MRI responsive contrast agents (mainly Lanthanide 3+ complexes), relying on a change in state of the MRI active part upon interaction with the cation of interest e.g. switch ON/OFF or vice versa, have been successfully utilized to detect zinc and are now being developed to detect Copper(II). These paramagnetic probes mainly exploit the relaxation-based properties (T1-based contrast agents), but also the paramagnetic induced hyperfine shift properties (paraCEST and parashift probes) of the contrast agents. The challenges encountered going from zinc to copper(II) detection are discussed. Depending on the response mechanism, the use of fast-field cycling MRI seems promising to increase the detection field while keeping a good response. In vivo applications of cation responsive MRI probes are only at their infancy and the recent developments are described, along with the associated quantification problems.
  • 1.4K
  • 08 Jan 2021
Topic Review
Acridine as an Anti-Tumour Agent
Acridine derivatives are a class of compounds that are being extensively researched as potential anti-cancer drugs. Acridines are well-known for their high cytotoxic activity; however, their clinical application is restricted or even excluded as a result of side effects. The photocytotoxicity of propyl acridine acts against leukaemia cell lines, with C1748 being a promising anti-tumour drug against UDP-UGT’s. CK0403 is reported in breast cancer treatment and is more potent than CK0402 against estrogen receptor-negative HER2. Acridine platinum (Pt) complexes have shown specificity on the evaluated DNA sequences; 9-anilinoacridine core, which intercalates DNA, and a methyl triazene DNA-methylating moiety were also studied. Acridine thiourea gold and acridinone derivatives act against cell lines such as MDA-MB-231, SK-BR-3, and MCF-7. Benzimidazole acridine compounds demonstrated cytotoxic activity against Dual Topo and PARP-1. 
  • 1.4K
  • 12 Jan 2023
Topic Review
Tormentic Acid
Tormentic acid, also known as 2α,3β,19α-trihydroxyurs-2-en-28-oic acid (IUPAC Name: (1R,2R,4aS,6aR,6aS,6bR,8aR,10R,11R,12aR,14bS)-1,10,11-trihydroxy-1,2,6a,6b,9,9,12a-heptamethyl-2,3,4,5,6,6a,7,8,8a,10,11,12,13,14b-tetradecahydropicene-4a-carboxylic acid), is a pentacyclic triterpene. Its biological activity e.g. anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, antihyperlipidemic, hepatoprotective, cardioprotective, neuroprotective, anti-cancer, anti-osteoarthritic, antinociceptive, antioxidative, anti-melanogenic, cytotoxic, antimicrobial, and antiparasitic has been confirmed in in vitro and in vivo studies. This molecule and its derivatives can be found in various plant species and families (e.g. Rosaceae, Lamiaceae, Myrtaceae, Oleaceae, Urticaceae, Boraginaceae), including edibles and herbs. 
  • 1.4K
  • 01 Jul 2021
Topic Review
Ellagic Acid
Polyphenol ellagic acid (EA) possesses antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic, anti-diabetic and cardio protection activities, making it an interesting multi-targeting profile. EA also controls the central nervous system (CNS), since it was proven to reduce the immobility time of mice in both the forced swimming and the tail-suspension tests, with an efficiency comparable to that of classic antidepressants. The proposed mechanism revealed that EA mimics clonidine at the presynaptic release-regulating α2 autoreceptors in hippocampal noradrenergic nerve endings.
  • 1.4K
  • 24 Nov 2021
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