Design, synthesis and docking study of 4-arylpiperazine carboxamides as monoamine neurotransmitters reuptake inhibitors

2-Phenylcyclopropylmethylamine (PCPMA) as a privileged scaffold for central nervous system drug design

The use of privileged scaffolds in medicinal chemistry is an effective way to accelerate the drug discovery process, especially at the hit/lead optimization stage. 2-Phenylcyclopropylmethylamine (PCPMA) is a less commonly used chemical scaffold in medicinal chemistry, but many PCPMA-containing compounds exert therapeutic effects for various diseases, in particular central nervous system (CNS) diseases such as depression, schizophrenia, sleep disorder, and Parkinson's disease. The backbone of the PCPMA scaffold enables a unique structure of an amino group linked to a benzene ring through an alkyl linker, making it a useful template for the design of bioactive compounds especially for CNS drug targets including aminergic GPCRs and transporters. This review summarizes the medicinal chemistry studies of PCPMA-containing drugs and drug-like molecules, their mechanisms of action, and biological activities. We conclude that PCPMA is a unique and useful privileged scaffold for CNS drug design.

Designing multi-target drugs for the treatment of major depressive disorder

INTRODUCTION

Major depressive disorders (MDD) pose major health burdens globally. Currently available medications have their limitations due to serious adverse effects, long latency periods as well as resistance. Considering the highly complicated pathological nature of this disorder, it has been suggested that multitarget drugs or multi-target-directed ligands (MTDLs) may provide long-term therapeutic solutions for the treatment of MDD.

AREAS COVERED

In the current review, recent lead design and lead modification strategies have been covered. Important investigations reported in the last ten years (2013-2022) for the pre-clinical development of MTDLs (through synthetic medicinal chemistry and biological evaluation) for the treatment of MDD were discussed as case studies to focus on the recent design strategies. The discussions are categorized based on the pharmacological targets. On the basis of these important case studies, the challenges involved in different design strategies were discussed in detail.

EXPERT OPINION

Even though large variations were observed in the selection of pharmacological targets, some potential biological targets (NMDA, melatonin receptors) are required to be explored extensively for the design of MTDLs. Similarly, apart from structure activity relationship (SAR), in silico techniques such as multitasking cheminformatic modelling, molecular dynamics simulation and virtual screening should be exploited to a greater extent.

Design Strategies, Chemistry and Therapeutic Insights of Multi-target Directed Ligands as Antidepressant Agents

Depression is one of the major disorders of the central nervous system worldwide and causes disability and functional impairment. According to the World Health Organization, around 265 million people worldwide are affected by depression. Currently marketed antidepressant drugs take weeks or even months to show anticipated clinical efficacy but remain ineffective in treating suicidal thoughts and cognitive impairment. Due to the multifactorial complexity of the disease, single-target drugs do not always produce satisfactory results and lack the desired level of therapeutic efficacy. Recent literature reports have revealed improved therapeutic potential of multi-target directed ligands due to their synergistic potency and better safety. Medicinal chemists have gone to great extents to design multitarget ligands by generating structural hybrids of different key pharmacophores with improved binding affinities and potency towards different receptors or enzymes. This article has compiled the design strategies of recently published multi-target directed ligands as antidepressant agents. Their biological evaluation, structural-activity relationships, mechanistic and in silico studies have also been described. This article will prove to be highly useful for the researchers to design and develop multi-target ligands as antidepressants with high potency and therapeutic efficacy.

Recent developments in ligands and chemical probes targeting solute carrier transporters

Solute carrier (SLC) membrane transporters remain a largely unexploited target class, despite their central roles in cell identity and metabolism. This gap is reflected in the lack of high-quality chemical ligands or probes and in the small number of compounds that have progressed toward clinical development. In this review, we discuss recent advancements in SLC ligand discovery as well as new candidates that have been added to the investigational toolkit, with a particular focus on first-in-class ligands and the cognate discovery strategies. The availability of new probes expands the opportunity to elucidate the functions of SLCs and their relevance in physiology and explores any future potential of SLC druggability.