Targeting autophagy with small-molecule activators for potential therapeutic purposes

Autophagy is well-known to be a lysosome-mediated catabolic process for maintaining cellular and organismal homeostasis, which has been established with many links to a variety of human diseases. Compared with the therapeutic strategy for inhibiting autophagy, activating autophagy seems to be another promising therapeutic strategy in several contexts. Hitherto, mounting efforts have been made to discover potent and selective small-molecule activators of autophagy to potentially treat human diseases. Thus, in this perspective, we focus on summarizing the complicated relationships between defective autophagy and human diseases, and further discuss the updated progress of a series of small-molecule activators targeting autophagy in human diseases. Taken together, these inspiring findings would provide a clue on discovering more small-molecule activators of autophagy as targeted candidate drugs for potential therapeutic purposes.

Neuropathic pain in leprosy: symptom profile characterization and comparison with neuropathic pain of other etiologies

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Neuropathic pain in leprosy may respond to drugs usually used to control pain of neuropathic profile and amitriptiline may constitute a candidate drug for future formal clinical trials.

Introduction:

Previous studies reported a high prevalence of neuropathic pain in leprosy, being especially present in “pharmacologically cured” patients. The presence of neuropathic pain in leprosy poses a supplementary burden in patient's quality of life, daily activities, and mood.

Objectives:

The aim of this study was to assess whether neuropathic pain in leprosy has similar symptom profile as neuropathic pain of other etiologies and to retrospectively assess the efficacy of neuropathic pain medications regularly prescribed to leprosy.

Methods:

Leprosy and nonleprosy patients had their neuropathic pain characterized by the neuropathic pain symptom inventory (NPSI, ranges from 0 to 100, with 100 being the maximal neuropathic pain intensity) in a first visit. In a second visit, leprosy patients who had significant pain and received pharmacological treatment in the first evaluation were reassessed (NPSI) and had their pain profile and treatment response further characterized, including information on drugs prescribed for neuropathic pain and their respective pain relief.

Results:

The pain characteristics based on NPSI did not significantly differ between leprosy and nonleprosy neuropathic pain patients in visit 1 after correction for multiple analyses, and cluster analyses confirmed these findings (ie, no discrimination between leprosy and nonleprosy groups; Pearson χ2 = 0.072, P = 0.788). The assessment of pain relief response and the drugs taken by each patient, linear regression analysis showed that amitriptyline, when effective, had the highest percentage of analgesic relief.

Conclusions:

Neuropathic pain in leprosy is as heterogeneous as neuropathic pain of other etiologies, further supporting the concept that neuropathic pain is a transetiological entity. Neuropathic pain in leprosy may respond to drugs usually used to control pain of neuropathic profile in general, and amitriptiline may constitute a potential candidate drug for future formal clinical trials aimed at controlling neuropathic pain in leprosy.

Discovery and preclinical development of new antibiotics

Antibiotics are the medical wonder of our age, but an increasing frequency of resistance among key pathogens is rendering them less effective. If this trend continues the consequences for cancer patients, organ transplant patients, and indeed the general community could be disastrous. The problem is complex, involving abuse and overuse of antibiotics (selecting for an increasing frequency of resistant bacteria), together with a lack of investment in discovery and development (resulting in an almost dry drug development pipeline). Remedial approaches to the problem should include taking measures to reduce the selective pressures for resistance development, and taking measures to incentivize renewed investment in antibiotic discovery and development. Bringing new antibiotics to the clinic is critical because this is currently the only realistic therapy that can ensure the level of infection control required for many medical procedures. Here we outline the complex process involved in taking a potential novel antibiotic from the initial discovery of a hit molecule, through lead and candidate drug development, up to its entry into phase I clinical trials. The stringent criteria that a successful drug must meet, balancing high efficacy in vivo against a broad spectrum of pathogens, with minimal liabilities against human targets, explain why even with sufficient investment this process is prone to a high failure rate. This emphasizes the need to create a well-funded antibiotic discovery and development pipeline that can sustain the continuous delivery of novel candidate drugs into clinical trials, to ensure the maintenance of the advanced medical procedures we currently take for granted.

Ulinastatin is a novel candidate drug for sepsis and secondary acute lung injury, evidence from an optimized CLP rat model

Ulinastatin is a potent multivalent serine protease inhibitor, which was recently found with therapeutic potentials in treating sepsis, and the most life-threatening complication of critically ill population. However, the pharmacological features and possible mechanisms need to be further elucidated in reliable and clinical relevant sepsis models. As known, sepsis induced by surgery of cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) is widely accepted as the gold standard animal model, but the inconsistency of outcomes is the most obvious problem. In the present experiments, we reported an improved rat CLP model with much more consistent outcomes using self-made three edged puncture needles in our lab. Results from this optimized model revealed that ulinastatin improved survivals of CLP rats, attenuated proinflammatory response and prevented systemic disorder and organ dysfunction. Ulinastatin was also found to be effective in ameliorating sepsis-related ALI, a syndrome most frequent and fatal in sepsis. The molecular mechanism investigation showed that ulinastatin's protection against ALI was probably related to the down-regulation of NF-κB activity and inhibition of TNF-α, IL-6 and elastase expressions in the lung tissue. In conclusion, based on a successful establishment of optimized rat CLP model ulinastatin is proved to be an effective candidate for sepsis treatment, due to its anti-inflammation and anti-protease activities that ameliorate systemic disorders, prevent organ injuries and thus improve the survival outcomes of sepsis in animals.