RSC Medicinal Chemistry Blog

Combating cold sores – MedChemComm in Chemistry World

01 Feb 2011

This MedChemComm article by Giovanni Grassi and colleagues in Messina, Italy, has been highlighted in the RSC magazine Chemistry World.

New compounds to fight the herpes simplex virus (HSV-1), which causes cold sores, have been made by researchers from Italy. The compounds’ antiviral activity could be enhanced further by encapsulating them in a cyclodextrin nanocarrier that acts as a delivery system.

Giovanni Grassi and colleagues from the University of Messina made indole-3,4-diones that share structural features with inhibitors of kinase – an enzyme linked to many diseases. The inhibitors were recently reported to prevent viral replication in vitro. ‘The diones showed remarkable anti HSV-1 activity in vitro,’ says Grassi. They then encapsulated the most effective dione in an amphiphilic – both hydrophilic and lipophilic – cyclodextrin. These nanocarriers increased the ability of the antiviral agents to penetrate into target cells.

Read the full story here.

The article is now free to access and you can download it here.

Synthesis and anti HSV-1 evaluation of novel indole-3,4-diones
Angela Scala, Massimiliano Cordaro, Antonino Mazzaglia, Francesco Risitano, Assunta Venuti, Maria Teresa Sciortino and Giovanni Grassi, Med. Chem. Commun., 2011
DOI: 10.1039/c0md00190b

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Virtually sieving for new antibiotics

01 Feb 2011

By Francesca Burgoyne.

The pesky ability of bacteria to develop resistance towards carefully constructed antibiotics constantly pushes researchers to develop novel compounds to annihilate them. Identifying new active compounds from the myriad of possibilities is a task made easier by computer-assisted ‘virtual screening‘, and now researchers from Germany and Switzerland have upped the ante once again with an even better process.

Gisbert Schneider and co-workers have developed a two-step screening process which they use to find small molecular aminoglycoside mimetics to inhibit bacterial protein biosynthesis. They screened a compound database using the pseudoreceptor approach with ‘fuzzy pharmacophore’ representations – which allows ‘scaffold-hopping’ to different ligand structures with retention of bioactivity – to find alternative chemotypes with lower structural complexity and greater synthetic accessibility.

Read how they did it here – the article’s free to access

Scaffold-hopping from aminoglycosides to small synthetic inhibitors of bacterial protein biosynthesis using a pseudoreceptor model
Dorota A. Urbanek, Ewgenij Proschak, Yusuf Tanrikulu, Steffi Becker, Michael Karas and Gisbert Schneider
Med. Chem. Commun. , 2011
DOI: 10.1039/C0MD00207K

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HOT: Understanding the biological activity of polysulfanes

26 Jan 2011

By Francesca Burgoyne.

Polysulfanes are best for their importance in the vulcanisation of rubber, but certain naturally occurring polysulfanes, such as those in garlic, have generated interest due to their biological activity. In recent years it has been realised that many polysulfanes undergo a myriad of complex reactions in vivo, few of which are fully understood – or have even been investigated yet.

Claus Jacob from Saarland University and team have investigated previously unknown biochemical modes of action of a number of naturally occurring polysulfanes. Using an assay based on the haemolysis of red blood cells as a simple biological model they looked at hydrophobic interactions of the polysulfanes with cell membranes, interactions with metalloproteins and metal-ligand interactions.

Interestingly, the study found (contrary to some previous reports) that redox processes involving thiol/disulfide exchange and S-thiolation of proteins and enzymes were not the sole explanation for the biological activity of polysulfanes. Instead, a combination of redox activity, superoxide generation, hydrophobic interactions with membranes and combined ligand-metal/hydrophobic interactions with certain proteins were together concluded to explain the complex and often selective biological activity. The authors hope that their findings will provide a strong basis for future research in selective cytotoxicity and drug development.

To read more download the article which is currently free to access:

Interactions of polysulfanes with components of red blood cells
Thomas Schneider, Lalla A. Ba, Khairan Khairan, Clemens Zwergel, Nguyen Duc Bach, Ingolf Bernhardt, Wolfgang Brandt, Ludger Wessjohann, Marc Diederich and Claus Jacob
Med. Chem. Commun., 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0MD00203H

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New antibiotics repair faulty genes

19 Jan 2011

By Sarah Dixon.

Many genetic diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy, are caused by DNA mutations that terminate protein synthesis in the mutant gene. Aminoglycoside based antibiotics have been shown to stop these mutations but are often toxic and cause unpleasant side-effects in patients.

Now Timor Baasov and colleagues have designed and synthesised new aminoglycoside derivatives that show enhanced targeting and reduced cell toxicity, compared with the leading antibiotic gentamicin. Baasov’s compounds contain a chiral methyl group at the side-chain of the ribosamine ring, which they claim could be an essential feature responsible for the compound’s biological activity.

These findings could have immediate therapeutic applications for the treatment of many genetic diseases and could also aid treatment of several types of cancer caused by DNA mutations.

Download this paper for free now!

Repairing faulty genes by aminoglycosides: Identification of new pharacophore with enhanced suppression of disease-causing nonsense mutations.
Jeyakumar Kandasamy, Dana Atia-Gilkin, Valery Belakhov and Timor Baasov
Med.Chem. Commun, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C0md00195c

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MedChemComm Issue 1 2011 is now published!

12 Jan 2011

By Lorena Tomas Laudo.

Welcome to MedChemComm Issue 1 of the New Year!

2011 is going to be a very exciting year for MedChemComm and you will still be able to read all our content for free until the end of the year. You just need to register for a RSC personal account.
We also encourage you to keep up-to-date with the latest news by following us on Twitter, signing up for our e-alerts and receiving MedChemComments (our newsletter) in your inbox.

Don’t forget to keep an eye on the MedChemComm Blog! You can also sign up for our RSS feed.

Without further delay, here you have the first issue of 2011.

We start the year with a great selection of articles, including ‘Proteochemometric Modeling as a Tool to Design Selective Compounds and Extrapolating to Novel Targets’ by Andreas Bender et al. and ‘Evaluation of FR901464 analogues in vitro and in vivo’ by Kazunori Koide et al.

I hope you find the articles interesting and you consider submitting your research to MedChemComm in the near future.

From the MedChemComm editorial office we wanted to wish a very happy New Year to all our readers, authors and referees and a very successful one in medicinal chemistry.

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Meet the MedChemComm team

04 Jan 2011

By Richard Kelly.

The MedChemComm team will be attending a number of conferences in 2011 and we would be delighted to meet you.

These are just some of the conferences where you can meet us in the coming months:

Antibiotics: Where are we now? – 20th January, London, UK – Meet Lorena
Zing Natural Products – 13th-16th February, Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt – Meet Richard
Lakeland Heterocyclic meeting, May – Grasmere, UK – Meet Lorena
ACS National Organic Symposium – 5th – 9th June – Princeton, US – Meet Richard
Frontiers in Medicinal Chemistry Meeting: Emerging Targets, Novel Candidates and Innovative Strategies– 19th-21st July – Stockholm, Sweden – Meet Richard
International Symposium on Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry (ISMSC) – 3rd-7th July, Brighton, UK – Meet Lorena
European Symposium on Organic Chemistry – 10th-15th July, Crete, Greece – Meet Lorena
22nd International Symposium: Synthesis in Organic Chemistry – 11th-14th July, Cambridge, UK – Meet Richard
OMCOS 16 – 24th-28th July – Shanghai, China – Meet Richard
GRC Medicinal Chemistry – 7th – 12th August – New Hampshire, US – Meet Lorena
4th International Symposium on Advances in Synthetic and Medicinal Chemistry – 21st-25th August, St Petersburg, Russia – Meet Lorena
242nd Meeting of the American Chemical Society- 27th – 31st August, Denver, US – Meet Richard
16th RSC-SCI Medicinal Chemistry meeting – 11th-14th September, Cambridge, UK – Meet Lorena

Please let us know if you are planning on attending any of these meetings as it would be lovely to meet you there.

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MedChemComm is now indexed in ISI

22 Dec 2010

By Lorena Tomas Laudo.

We are really pleased to say that MedChemComm is now being indexed in ISI Web of Science.

Issue 1 is already there and some of the articles have already been cited. Congratulations to Jean-Louis Reymond, Julia M. Adam, Franco Chimenti and Zhisong Lu and their research teams for being the first cited authors of MedChemComm in ISI.

Remember that you can now read all these articles for free!

Happy Holidays and best wishes for 2011!

Chemical space as a source for new drugs
Jean-Louis Reymond, Ruud van Deursen, Lorenz C. Blum and Lars Ruddigkeit
Med. Chem. Commun., 2010, 1, 30-38
DOI: 10.1039/C0MD00020E

Design, synthesis, and structure–activity relationships of indole-3-carboxamides as novel water soluble cannabinoid CB1 receptor agonists
Julia M. Adam, Jim Cairns, Wilson Caulfield, Phillip Cowley, Iain Cumming, Morag Easson, Darren Edwards, Morag Ferguson, Richard Goodwin, Fiona Jeremiah, Takao Kiyoi, Ashvin Mistry, Elizabeth Moir, Richard Morphy, Jason Tierney, Mark York, James Baker, Jean E. Cottney, Andrea K. Houghton, Paul J. Westwood and Glenn Walker
Med. Chem. Commun., 2010, 1, 54-60
DOI: 10.1039/C0MD00022A

Synthesis and selective inhibition of human monoamine oxidasesof a large scaffold of (4,5-substituted-thiazol-2-yl)hydrazones
Franco Chimenti, Daniela Secci, Adriana Bolasco, Paola Chimenti, Arianna Granese, Simone Carradori, Melissa D’Ascenzio, Matilde Yáñez and Francisco Orallo
Med. Chem. Commun., 2010, 1, 61-72
DOI: 10.1039/C0MD00014K

Effect of particle shape on phagocytosisof CdTe quantum dot–cystinecomposites
Zhisong Lu, Yan Qiao, Xin Ting Zheng, Mary B. Chan-Park and Chang Ming Li
Med. Chem. Commun., 2010, 1, 84-86
DOI: 10.1039/C0MD00008F

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Hybrid ligands targeting Aβ fibrillization for Alzheimer

17 Dec 2010

By Lorena Tomas Laudo.

Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. It is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by a progression from episodic memory problems to a slow global decline of cognitive function and it affects 10% of the people over the age of 65.

Unfortunately, the current treatments are purely symptom-relieving and an actual treatment or prevention of Alzheimer is still lacking.

Ilona B. Bruinsma and her team at Nijmegen, The Netherlands, have designed bifunctional “β -sheet breakers” that interfere with the portions of the Aβ peptide known to contribute to aggregation and GAG interaction.

Read this interesting paper free to access from MedChemComm

A rational design to create hybrid β-sheet breaker peptides to inhibit aggregation and toxicity of amyloid-β
Ilona B. Bruinsma, Anna Karawajczyk, Gijs Schaftenaar, Robert M. W. de Waal, Marcel M. Verbeek and Floris L. van Delft
Med. Chem. Commun., 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0MD00213E

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RSC Medicinal Chemistry Blog

Combating cold sores – MedChemComm in Chemistry World

Virtually sieving for new antibiotics

Top ten most accessed articles in December

HOT: Understanding the biological activity of polysulfanes

New antibiotics repair faulty genes

Top ten most accessed articles in November

MedChemComm Issue 1 2011 is now published!

Meet the MedChemComm team

MedChemComm is now indexed in ISI

Hybrid ligands targeting Aβ fibrillization for Alzheimer

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