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Revealing New Molecular Mechanisms in Medicinal Chemistry

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Pharmacology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 April 2025) | Viewed by 1455

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
College of Science, Health and Pharmacy, Roosevelt University, 1400 N Roosevelt Blvd, Schaumburg, IL 60173, USA
Interests: structure-based drug design; antibacterial design; drug repurposing; high throughput screening; covalent inhibitors

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The current arsenal of US FDA-approved drugs targets nearly 1000 human and pathogen-derived biomolecules. While annual new drug approvals continue at a steady rate, with 2023 marking the greatest number of approvals in three decades, drugs with novel mechanisms of action mark only a subset of these approvals. Targeting unique processes within disease states remains crucial for combating drug resistance, therapeutic failures in patient subgroups, and stratified therapeutic efficacy. Innovative mechanism-based drug design often requires annotating previously undescribed biomolecular targets. This Special Issue in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences highlights timely mechanistic discoveries in pharmacology, regardless of disease state, in emerging drug discovery campaigns. Molecular mechanisms of medicinal chemistry are defined as the biomolecular interactions between a pharmacological lead and target that elicit the desired physiological response. This Special Issue will platform exciting breakthroughs in the development of next-generation competitive and uncompetitive modulators, allosteric and covalent inhibitors, ligands with diverse pharmacokinetics, and newly defined polypharmacologic approaches, among others. Submitted manuscripts should include a detailed mechanistic evaluation of drug action. Submissions relating to all disease states are welcome.

Dr. Margaret E. Olson
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • pharmacology
  • pharmacokinetics
  • covalent
  • competitive
  • uncompetitive
  • agonist
  • antagonist
  • drug development
  • mechanism of action

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

13 pages, 4612 KiB  
Article
Bovine Lactoferrin Promotes Neurite Outgrowth in PC12 Cells via the TrkA Receptor
by Daichi Nagashima, Noa Mizukami, Nana Ogawa, Sayaka Suzuki, Megumi Ohno, Ryoken Aoki, Megumi Furukawa and Nobuo Izumo
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2024, 25(20), 11249; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms252011249 - 19 Oct 2024
Viewed by 996
Abstract
Lactoferrin (LF) is a multifunctional protein abundant in breast milk that modulates the functions of neural stem cells. Recent studies have demonstrated the efficacy of bovine LF (bLF) in mitigating behavioral changes; however, the molecular mechanisms on the nervous system have not yet [...] Read more.
Lactoferrin (LF) is a multifunctional protein abundant in breast milk that modulates the functions of neural stem cells. Recent studies have demonstrated the efficacy of bovine LF (bLF) in mitigating behavioral changes; however, the molecular mechanisms on the nervous system have not yet been elucidated. The presented study aimed to characterize the molecular mechanisms of bLF on nerve extension in PC12 cells. PC12 cells were treated with 0.01–1000 µg/mL of bLF, and cell viability was determined using the cell counting kit-8 assay after treatment for 24 h. Morphometric evaluation was performed after 24 or 72 h of treatment with 50 ng/mL nerve growth factor (NGF) or 100–500 µg/mL bLF. The molecular mechanisms were investigated using Western blotting and real-time quantitative PCR. Cell viability was significantly decreased after treatment with 600–1000 µg/mL bLF for 24 h compared with the control group. Morphometric evaluation revealed neurite outgrowth after 72 h of NGF treatment, with a significant increase in neurite outgrowth after treatment with 250 µg/mL bLF. The phosphorylated p44/42 expression ratio peaked at 5 min and persisted for up to 10 min. Quantitative real-time PCR revealed a significant decrease in MAP2 expression. Our findings suggested that bLF enhanced PC12 cell neurite outgrowth to a similar extent as NGF. These effects are thought to be mediated via the TrkA receptor and activated by the phosphorylated ERK signaling pathway. Therefore, this study demonstrates that bLF promotes neurite outgrowth via a pathway similar to that of NGF. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Revealing New Molecular Mechanisms in Medicinal Chemistry)
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