Novel Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Strategies to Induce Autophagy
A special issue of Pharmaceutics (ISSN 1999-4923). This special issue belongs to the section "Drug Targeting and Design".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 2590
Special Issue Editors
Interests: protein aggregation; neurobiology; Parkinson’s disease; autophagy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: protein-protein interactions; medicinal chemistry; nanoparticles
Interests: rational drug design; chemical genetics; medicinal chemistry
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The accumulation of protein aggregates and dysfunctional mitochondria within the brain have long been recognized as critical components of the molecular etiology of several neurodegenerative disease. The catabolic pathways collectively known as autophagy represent a key determinant of whether protein aggregates persist, or whether dysfunctional mitochondria are disposed of correctly. Both genetic and molecular evidence have implicated autophagy in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders. Thus, the pharmacological induction of autophagy may result a potential therapeutic approach relevant to a number of neurodegenerative disorders. Autophagy inducers have been characterized: rapamycin and trehalose proved to be effective in vitro and in vivo. However, those compounds have a limited clinical applicability because of safety and pharmacokinetic issues. Meanwhile, new autophagy-connected molecular targets were identified and validated, and drug discovery efforts targeted against them are appearing at a fast pace. Clearly, autophagy induction may be a promising therapeutic opportunity, but clinically relevant drugs are still to be discovered.
This Special Issue invites international researchers in the area of new strategies to induce autophagy in therapeutic, authentic models. We welcome studies focused on the identification of natural and synthetic autophagy inducers from HTS campaigns, on the rational design and structure-activity relationships of small molecule autophagic inducers, biologicals, nanocarriers, alternative systems to deliver putative autophagic drugs, and preclinical evaluation of promising leads.
Prof. Dr. Giovanni Piccoli
Dr. Daniela Arosio
Dr. Pierfausto Seneci
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- autophagy
- nanoassemblies
- prodrugs
- in vitro models
- in vivo models
- pharmacokinetics
- trehalose
- rapamycin
- pharmacological chaperones
- delivery systems
- rational drug design
