CADD Modeling of Multi-Target Drugs Against Alzheimer's Disease

Review of Personalized Medicine and Pharmacogenomics of Anti-Cancer Compounds and Natural Products

In recent years, the FDA has approved numerous anti-cancer drugs that are mutation-based for clinical use. These drugs have improved the precision of treatment and reduced adverse effects and side effects. Personalized therapy is a prominent and hot topic of current medicine and also represents the future direction of development. With the continuous advancements in gene sequencing and high-throughput screening, research and development strategies for personalized clinical drugs have developed rapidly. This review elaborates the recent personalized treatment strategies, which include artificial intelligence, multi-omics analysis, chemical proteomics, and computation-aided drug design. These technologies rely on the molecular classification of diseases, the global signaling network within organisms, and new models for all targets, which significantly support the development of personalized medicine. Meanwhile, we summarize chemical drugs, such as lorlatinib, osimertinib, and other natural products, that deliver personalized therapeutic effects based on genetic mutations. This review also highlights potential challenges in interpreting genetic mutations and combining drugs, while providing new ideas for the development of personalized medicine and pharmacogenomics in cancer study.

In silico and in vitro analyses of a novel FoxO1 agonist reducing Aβ levels via downregulation of BACE1

AIMS

FoxO1 is an important target in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, FoxO1-specific agonists and their effects on AD have not yet been reported. This study aimed to identify small molecules that upregulate the activity of FoxO1 to attenuate the symptoms of AD.

METHODS

FoxO1 agonists were identified by in silico screening and molecular dynamics simulation. Western blotting and reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction assays were used to assess protein and gene expression levels of P21, BIM, and PPARγ downstream of FoxO1 in SH-SY5Y cells, respectively. Western blotting and enzyme-linked immunoassays were performed to explore the effect of FoxO1 agonists on APP metabolism.

RESULTS

N-(3-methylisothiazol-5-yl)-2-(2-oxobenzo[d]oxazol-3(2H)-yl) acetamide (compound D) had the highest affinity for FoxO1. Compound D activated FoxO1 and regulated the expression of its downstream target genes, P21, BIM, and PPARγ. In SH-SY5Y cells treated with compound D, BACE1 expression levels were downregulated, and the levels of Aβ1-40 and Aβ1-42 were also reduced.

CONCLUSIONS

We present a novel small-molecule FoxO1 agonist with good anti-AD effects. This study highlights a promising strategy for new drug discovery for AD.

Impact of Caffeine on Alzheimer’s Disease Pathogenesis—Protective or Risk Factor?

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common dementia worldwide, remains without an effective treatment to this day despite intensive research conducted during the last decades. In this context, researchers have turned their attention towards the prevention of this pathology, focusing on early detection and better control of the most important risk factors, concomitantly with trying to find potentially protective factors that may delay the onset of AD. From the multitude of factors studied, coffee (especially its main component, caffeine) is a current interesting research topic, taking into consideration the contradictory results of recent years’ studies. On the one hand, much of the evidence from fundamental research suggests the potentially protective trait of caffeine in AD, while other data mainly from human studies lean toward no correlation or even suggesting that caffeine is a veritable risk factor for dementia. Given the methodological heterogeneity of the studies, this review aims to bring new evidence regarding this topic and to try to clearly establish a correlation between the two entities. Thus, in the first part, the authors make a clear distinction between the effects of coffee and the effects of caffeine in AD, presenting a rich basis of clinical trials on both animal models and the human subject. Subsequently, the main pathophysiological mechanisms that would explain the action of caffeine in the etiopathogenesis of AD are reviewed. Finally, the role of computational models is presented, having beneficial impact on both better understanding of the disease mechanism and the development of new therapeutic approaches for AD prevention.

An overview on the synthesis of carbohydrate-based molecules with biological activity related to neurodegenerative diseases

In the context of the search for multitarget drugs with improved efficacy against neurodegenerative disorders, carbohydrate derivatives have emerged as promising candidates for Alzheimer's therapy. Herein we describe the synthesis and biological evaluation of several classes of sugar-based compounds, where most of them contain heterocyclic aromatic moieties that bear known biological properties and high affinity for the cholinesterase active site. This general idea led to the synthesis of compounds with high inhibitory potency against acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE), enzymatic selectivity and combined properties such as antioxidant and neuroprotection, in addition to the absence of toxicity.

Computer-aided molecular design of 2-anilino 4-amino substituted quinazolines derivatives as malarial inhibitors

Quantitative structure–activity relationship studies conducted on forty-five (45) derivatives of 2-anilino 4-amino substituted quinazolines as malaria inhibitors to determine the structures responsible for their antimalarial properties and design novel derivatives with improved activities. The molecular descriptors generated were selected to develop the theoretical model using the genetic approximation component of the material studio. The developed model found to be a function of ATSC8c, GATS8i, SpMin1_Bhi, JGI10, and TDB6u descriptors, shows excellent statistical parameters (R2 = 0.7913, R2adj = 0.7553, Q2cv = 0.7112, LOF = 0.2125, and R2pred = 0.7650). The mean effect (MF) analysis revealed the descriptor SpMin1_Bhi, as the most influential by its largest percentage contribution (54%) to the developed model. The descriptor decodes the information on the first ionization potentials and was found to have positive MF. Hence, activity increases with increases the descriptor value. Structural modifications of the template (compound 13; pEC50 = 7.387) using electron-withdrawing groups increases the descriptor value (first ionization potentials) of the template, which by extension increases the antimalarial activity lead to the design of ten (10) novel theoretical derivatives with improve antimalarial activities. Compound 3, N4-(3-bromo-5-fluorobenzyl)-N2-(4-fluorophenyl)-6,7-dimethoxyquinazoline-2,4-diamine was found to have the highest antimalarial activities among all the designed derivatives (pEC50 = 8.0515).

Effect of a purine derivative containing selenium to improve memory decline and anxiety through modulation of the cholinergic system and Na+/K+-ATPase in an Alzheimer's disease model

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a worldwide problem, and there are currently no treatments that can stop this disease. To investigate the binding affinity of 6-((4-fluorophenyl) selanyl)-9H-purine (FSP) with acetylcholinesterase (AChE), to verify the effects of FSP in an AD model in mice and to evaluate the toxicological potential of this compound in mice. The binding affinity of FSP with AChE was investigated by molecular docking analyses. The AD model was induced by streptozotocin (STZ) in Swiss mice after FSP treatment (1 mg/kg, intragastrically (i.g.)), 1st-10th day of the experimental protocol. Anxiety was evaluated in an elevated plus maze test, and memory impairment was evaluated in the Y-maze, object recognition and step-down inhibitory avoidance tasks. The cholinergic system was investigated based on by looking at expression and activity of AChE and expression of choline acetyltransferase (ChAT). We evaluated expression and activity of Na⁺/K⁺-ATPase. For toxicological analysis, animals received FSP (300 mg/kg, i.g.) and aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase activities were determined in plasma and δ-aminolevulinate dehydratase activity in brain and liver. FSP interacts with residues of the AChE active site. FSP mitigated the induction of anxiety and memory impairment caused by STZ. FSP protected cholinergic system dysfunction and reduction of activity and expression of Na⁺/K⁺-ATPase. FSP did not modify toxicological parameters evaluated and did not cause the death of mice. FSP protected against anxiety, learning and memory impairment with involvement of the cholinergic system and Na⁺/K⁺-ATPase in these actions.

Recent Advances in Multi-target Anti-Alzheimer Disease Compounds (2013 Up to the Present)

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Since the last century, when scientists proposed the lock-and-key model, the discovery of drugs has focused on the development of drugs acting on single target. However, single-target drug therapies are not effective to complex diseases with multi-factorial pathogenesis. Moreover, the combination of single-target drugs readily causes drug resistance and side effects. In recent years, multi-target drugs have increasingly been represented among FDA-approved drugs. Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a complex and multi-factorial disease for which the precise molecular mechanisms are still not fully understood. In recent years, rational multi-target drug design methods, which combine the pharmacophores of multiple drugs, have been increasingly applied in the development of anti-AD drugs. In this review, we give a brief description of the pathogenesis of AD and provide detailed discussions about the recent development of chemical structures of anti-AD agents (2013 up to present) that have multiple targets, such as amyloid-β peptide, Tau protein, cholinesterases, monoamine oxidase, β-site amyloid-precursor protein-cleaving enzyme 1, free radicals, metal ions (Fe2+, Cu2+, Zn2+) and so on. In this paper, we also added some novel targets or possible pathogenesis which have been reported in recent years for AD therapy. We hope that these findings may provide new perspectives for the pharmacological treatment of AD.

Current Therapeutic Molecules and Targets in Neurodegenerative Diseases Based on in silico Drug Design

Abstract: Background

As the number of elderly persons increases, neurodegenerative diseases are becoming ubiquitous. There is currently a great need for knowledge concerning management of old-age neurodegenerative diseases; the most important of which are: Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and Huntington’s disease.

Objective

To summarize the potential of computationally predicted molecules and targets against neurodegenerative diseases.

Method

Review of literature published since 1997 against neurodegenerative diseases, utilizing as keywords: in silico, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis ALS, and Huntington’s disease was conducted.

Results and Conclusion

Due to the costs associated with experimentation and current ethical law, performing experiments directly on living organisms has become much more difficult. In this scenario, in silico techniques have been successful and have become powerful tools in the search to cure disease. Researchers use the Computer Aided Drug Design pipeline which: 1) generates 3-dimensional structures of target proteins through homology modeling 2) achieves stabilization through molecular dynamics simulation, and 3) exploits molecular docking through large compound libraries. Next generation sequencing is continually producing enormous amounts of raw sequence data while neuroimaging is producing a multitude of raw image data. To solve such pressing problems, these new tools and algorithms are required. This review elaborates precise in silico tools and techniques for drug targets, active molecules, and molecular docking studies, together with future prospects and challenges concerning possible breakthroughs in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and Huntington’s disease.

Research and development of anti-Alzheimer's disease drugs: an update from the perspective of technology flows

INTRODUCTION

Today, over 20 million people suffer from Alzheimer's disease (AD) worldwide. AD has become a critical issue to human health, especially in aging societies, and therefore it is a research hotspot in the global scientific community. The technology flow method differs from traditional reviews generating an informative overview of the research and development (R&D) landscape in a specific technological area. We need such an updated method to get a general overview of the R&D of anti-AD drugs in light of the dramatic developments in this area in recent years.

AREAS COVERED

This study collects patent data from the Integrity database. A total of 399 patents with 821 internal citation pairs in the US from 1978 to 2017 were analyzed. Patent citation network analysis was used to visualize the technology relationship.

EXPERT OPINION

For better production of anti-AD drugs, governments should emphasize the multi-target drug design, provide policy support for private companies, and encourage multilateral cooperation. The β-amyloid peptide (Aβ) theory leaves much to be desired; neurotransmitter and tau protein hypotheses are worth further examination. The use of old drugs for new indications is promising, as are traditional herbal medicines.