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Pharmaceutics
Special Issues
Ubiquitous Heterocycles in Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Industry
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Ubiquitous Heterocycles in Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Industry

A special issue of Pharmaceutics (ISSN 1999-4923). This special issue belongs to the section "Drug Targeting and Design".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2021) | Viewed by 6928

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Peng Zhan

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Guest Editor
Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, China
Interests: antiviral drug; medicinal chemistry; drug design; new drug modalities
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Shuang-Xi Gu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Key Laboratory for Green Chemical Process of Ministry of Education, School of Chemical Engineering and Pharmacy, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Road, Wuhan 430205, Hubei, China
Interests: medicinal chemistry of anti-viral; anti tumor agents; pharmaceutical engineering
Prof. Dr. Edeildo Ferreira da Silva-Júnior

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Chemistry and Biotechnology, Federal University of Alagoas, Lourival Melo Mota Avenue, 57072-900 Maceió, Brazil
Interests: medicinal chemistry; viruses; computer-aided drug design; molecular modeling; organic synthesis; druggability of targets; QSAR; virtual screening; neglected tropical diseases

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Incorporation of heterocyclic groups into compounds can serve as a linker to generate favorable geometric conformations or generate binding interactions with a biological target. Heterocycles are also used as functional group replacements (bioisosteres) for carboxylates, esters, carbamates, nitriles, etc. to optimize drug-likeness of the molecules. The presence of oxygen, sulphur and nitrogen atoms often polarizes the ring system and has been used to optimize physical properties including solubility or crystal morphology. In view of the predominance of heterocyclic groups, an updated and detailed account of the pharmacological properties of some ubiquitous heterocycles in medicinal chemistry and pharmaceutical industry will be described in this Special Issue. Besides, some outlooks on current issues and future directions in this field of research will also be provided.

Prof. Dr. Peng Zhan
Prof. Dr. Shuang-Xi Gu
Prof. Dr. Edeildo Ferreira da Silva-Júnior
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • pharmaceutical industry
  • heterocylces
  • drug design
  • privileged structures
  • pharmacological potential
  • drug metabolism and metabolism-based design of drugs

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 2322 KiB  
Article
Tethered Aryl Groups Increase the Activity of Anti-Proliferative Thieno[2,3-b]Pyridines by Targeting a Lipophilic Region in the Active Site of PI-PLC
by Natalie A. Haverkate, Euphemia Leung, Lisa I. Pilkington and David Barker
Pharmaceutics 2021, 13(12), 2020; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics13122020 - 26 Nov 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1955
Abstract
The compounds 2-amino-3-carboxamido-thieno[2,3-b]pyridines have demonstrated excellent anti-proliferative activity against human cancer cell lines, including the triple-negative breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231. In this study, 81 novel thieno[2,3-b]pyridines were synthesised in four series to further improve their anti-proliferative activity, in [...] Read more.
The compounds 2-amino-3-carboxamido-thieno[2,3-b]pyridines have demonstrated excellent anti-proliferative activity against human cancer cell lines, including the triple-negative breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231. In this study, 81 novel thieno[2,3-b]pyridines were synthesised in four series to further improve their anti-proliferative activity, in particular by targeting an adjacent lipophilic pocket in the putative target enzyme phosphoinositide phospholipase C (PI-PLC). Overall, it was found that appending a propyl-aryl group at C-5 on 2-amino-3-carboxamido-thieno[2,3-b]pyridine resulted in compounds with potent biological activity, exhibiting IC50 values in the nanomolar range. The propyl linker could be an α,β-unsaturated ketone or a saturated propyl ketone, but the highest activity was obtained when allylic alcohols were the tether between thieno[2,3-b]pyridine and the appended aryl group, with compound 21r having IC50 values lower than 50 nM. Compounds with one extra carbon in the tether (i.e., a four-atom chain) were found to be considerably less active. Molecular modelling revealed this propyl tether places the newly introduced aryl ring in an untargeted lipophilic pocket within the active site of the phosphoinositide phospholipase C (PI-PLC) enzyme. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ubiquitous Heterocycles in Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Industry)
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18 pages, 4077 KiB  
Article
Enhanced Stability and Bioactivity of Natural Anticancer Topoisomerase I Inhibitors through Cyclodextrin Complexation
by Víctor González-Ruiz, Ángel Cores, Olmo Martín-Cámara, Karen Orellana, Víctor Cervera-Carrascón, Patrycja Michalska, Ana I. Olives, Rafael León, M. Antonia Martín and J. Carlos Menéndez
Pharmaceutics 2021, 13(10), 1609; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics13101609 - 3 Oct 2021
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 3525
Abstract
The use of cyclodextrins as drug nano-carrier systems for drug delivery is gaining importance in the pharmaceutical industry due to the interesting pharmacokinetic properties of the resulting inclusion complexes. In the present work, complexes of the anti-cancer alkaloids camptothecin and luotonin A have [...] Read more.
The use of cyclodextrins as drug nano-carrier systems for drug delivery is gaining importance in the pharmaceutical industry due to the interesting pharmacokinetic properties of the resulting inclusion complexes. In the present work, complexes of the anti-cancer alkaloids camptothecin and luotonin A have been prepared with β-cyclodextrin and hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin. These cyclodextrin complexes were characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). The variations in the 1H-NMR and 13C-NMR chemical shifts allowed to establish the inclusion modes of the compounds into the cyclodextrin cavities, which were supported by docking and molecular dynamics studies. The efficiency of the complexation was quantified by UV-Vis spectrophotometry and spectrofluorimetry, which showed that the protonation equilibria of camptothecin and luotonin A were drastically hampered upon formation of the inclusion complexes. The stabilization of camptothecin towards hydrolysis inside the cyclodextrin cavity was verified by the quantitation of the active lactone form by reverse phase liquid chromatography fluorimetric detection, both in basic conditions and in the presence of serum albumin. The antitumor activity of luotonin A and camptothecin complexes were studied in several cancer cell lines (breast, lung, hepatic carcinoma, ovarian carcinoma and human neuroblastoma) and an enhanced activity was found compared to the free alkaloids, particularly in the case of hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin derivatives. This result shows that the cyclodextrin inclusion strategy has much potential towards reaching the goal of employing luotonin A or its analogues as stable analogues of camptothecin. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ubiquitous Heterocycles in Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Industry)
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