CADD of Benzimidazole and other Heterocyclic Compounds Targeting GPCRs

Dear Colleagues,

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are membrane proteins that serve as very important links through which cellular signal transduction mechanisms are activated. GPCRs are characterized by seven membrane-spanning domains with an extracellular N terminus and a cytoplasmic C terminus.

In human beings, there are more than 800 different GPCRs, located in different systems, which participate in functions as varied as vision, smell, and taste, and neurological, cardiovascular, endocrine and reproductive functions. This ubiquity makes GPCRs the main objective of pharmacological development, being the target of approximately 40% of all modern drugs.

Nowadays, Computer-Aided Drug Discovery/design methods (CADD) have played a major role in the development of therapeutically important small molecules for over three decades. These methods are broadly classified as either structure-based or ligand-based methods. Among the heterocyclic systems proposed through CADD techniques are benzimidazoles. The properties of benzimidazole and its derivatives have been studied over more than one hundred years. Benzimidazole derivatives are useful intermediates/subunits for the development of molecules of pharmaceutical or biological interest.

In this Special Issue are presented theoretical and experimental articles that report on computer-aided drug design and synthesis of benzimidazole compounds with biological activity in GPCRs.

Dr. Jaime Mella Raipan
Dr. David Pessoa Mahana
Dr. Gonzalo Recabarren Gajardo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 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.