Synthesis and pharmacological evaluation of a new class of bicyclic phospholipids, designed as platelet activating factor antagonists

Drug Discovery Insights from Medicinal Beetles in Traditional Chinese Medicine

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) was the primary source of medical treatment for the people inhabiting East Asia for thousands of years. These ancient practices have incorporated a wide variety of materia medica including plants, animals and minerals. As modern sciences, including natural products chemistry, emerged, there became increasing efforts to explore the chemistry of this materia medica to find molecules responsible for their traditional use. Insects, including beetles have played an important role in TCM. In our survey of texts and review articles on TCM materia medica, we found 48 species of beetles from 34 genera in 14 different families that are used in TCM. This review covers the chemistry known from the beetles used in TCM, or in cases where a species used in these practices has not been chemically studied, we discuss the chemistry of closely related beetles. We also found several documented uses of beetles in Traditional Korean Medicine (TKM), and included them where appropriate. There are 129 chemical constituents of beetles discussed.

Studies on antiplatelet agents from natural safrole. II. Synthesis and pharmacological properties of novel functionalized oxime O-benzylether derivatives

In an ongoing research program aiming at the synthesis and pharmacological evaluation of new possible prototype candidates exploring the molecular hybridation and bioisosterism principles for molecular designing, we describe in this paper the design and synthesis of a series of new functionalized oxime O-benzylethers (4a-b) and (14a-b) as antiplatelet agents based on the inhibition of arachidonic acid (AA) cascade enzymes. For the synthesis of these new bioactive derivatives we used safrole (5), a Brazilian abundant natural product, as starting material. The platelet anti-aggregating evaluation of these oxime O-benzylether compounds (4a-b) and (14a-b) in model induced by ADP, collagen and AA, has permitted to evidence an antithrombotic profile to these new derivatives, being the most active the derivative methyl [[3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl]methylene]amino]oxy]-4-methylenephenylacet ic acid (14a).