The 20th Anniversary of Pharmaceuticals—New Insights in Medicinal Chemistry of Nitrogen-Containing Compounds

Dear Colleagues,

Nitrogen atoms are very important elements in life. Together with carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, they are part of essential biomolecules, such as nucleic acids, proteins, enzymes, vitamins, hormones, and numerous secondary metabolites of both animal and plant kingdoms.

Nitrogen-containing scaffolds of acyclic or cyclic structure have made valuable contributions to medicinal chemistry, providing a rich diversity source for drug design. Its ability to display a moldable acid–base behavior and establish diverse supramolecular interactions, including electrostatic forces, conventional and unconventional hydrogen interactions, van der Waals and hydrophobic bonds, or even π-π interactions, allows them to bind to a wide variety of drug targets.

Among nitrogen-based frameworks, it is noteworthy that heterocyclic systems are the most prevalent for the design of pharmacophores due to their heterogeneous structure and biological significance. Azoles, azines, and azepines of monocyclic or bicyclic structure are currently recognized as indispensable building blocks for the development of novel therapeutic agents with a wide spectrum of biological effects. These ring systems are present in many FDA-approved drugs which are effective for the treatment of several diseases.

In addition, nitrogen derivatives such as urea, thiourea, guanidine, sulphonamide, propargylamine, and nitro-containing compounds are also acknowledged as privileged structural motifs in medicinal and synthetic chemistry. Other nitrogen functional groups which have recently emerged as unconventional pharmacophores include isocyanides and sulfoximines, which are two strategic moieties used for drug design purposes because of their interesting properties (including favorable physicochemical and metabolic behavior as well as good metal coordinative abilities, i.e., features associated with biological effects).  

This Special Issue of the journal Pharmaceuticals is devoted to new insights centered around the medicinal chemistry of nitrogen-containing compounds and invites both research papers and reviews on the use of acyclic and cyclic nitrogen scaffolds in drug design and development. This Special Issue aims to check the state of the art and describe the latest advances and the future prospects on this topic.

Prof. Dr. María del Carmen Terán Moldes
Prof. Dr. Pedro Besada Pereira
Guest Editors

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