3d metal complexes with meloxicam as therapeutic agents in the fight against human glioblastoma multiforme and cervical carcinoma

Exploring cutting-edge strategies for drug repurposing in female cancers - An insight into the tools of the trade

Female cancers, which include breast and gynaecological cancers, represent a significant global health burden for women. Despite advancements in research pertinent to unearthing crucial pathological characteristics of these cancers, challenges persist in discovering potential therapeutic strategies. This is further exacerbated by economic burdens associated with de novo drug discovery and clinical intricacies such as development of drug resistance and metastasis. Drug repurposing, an innovative approach leveraging existing FDA-approved drugs for new indications, presents a promising avenue to expedite therapeutic development. Computational techniques, including virtual screening and analysis of drug-target-disease relationships, enable the identification of potential candidate drugs. Integration of diverse data types, such as omics and clinical information, enhances the precision and efficacy of drug repurposing strategies. Experimental approaches, including high-throughput screening assays, in vitro, and in vivo models, complement computational methods, facilitating the validation of repurposed drugs. This review highlights various target mining strategies based on analysis of differential gene expression, weighted gene co-expression, protein-protein interaction network, and host-pathogen interaction, among others. To unearth drug candidates, the technicalities of leveraging information from databases such as DrugBank, STITCH, LINCS, and ChEMBL, among others are discussed. Further in silico validation techniques encompassing molecular docking, pharmacophore modelling, molecular dynamic simulations, and ADMET analysis are elaborated. Overall, this review delves into the exploration of individual case studies to offer a wide perspective of the ever-evolving field of drug repurposing, emphasizing the multifaceted approaches and methodologies employed for the same to confront female cancers.

Repositioning of Anti-Inflammatory Drugs for the Treatment of Cervical Cancer Sub-Types

Cervical cancer is the fourth most commonly diagnosed cancer worldwide and, in almost all cases is caused by infection with highly oncogenic Human Papillomaviruses (HPVs). On the other hand, inflammation is one of the hallmarks of cancer research. Here, we focused on inflammatory proteins that classify cervical cancer patients by considering individual differences between cancer patients in contrast to conventional treatments. We repurposed anti-inflammatory drugs for therapy of HPV-16 and HPV-18 infected groups, separately. In this study, we employed systems biology approaches to unveil the diagnostic and treatment options from a precision medicine perspective by delineating differential inflammation-associated biomarkers associated with carcinogenesis for both subtypes. We performed a meta-analysis of cervical cancer-associated transcriptomic datasets considering subtype differences of samples and identified the differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Using gene signature reversal on HPV-16 and HPV-18, we performed both signature- and network-based drug reversal to identify anti-inflammatory drug candidates against inflammation-associated nodes. The anti-inflammatory drug candidates were evaluated using molecular docking to determine the potential of physical interactions between the anti-inflammatory drug and inflammation-associated nodes as drug targets. We proposed 4 novels anti-inflammatory drugs (AS-601245, betamethasone, narciclasin, and methylprednisolone) for the treatment of HPV-16, 3 novel drugs for the treatment of HPV-18 (daphnetin, phenylbutazone, and tiaprofenoic acid), and 5 novel drugs (aldosterone, BMS-345541, etodolac, hydrocortisone, and prednisolone) for the treatment of both subtypes. We proposed anti-inflammatory drug candidates that have the potential to be therapeutic agents for the prevention and/or treatment of cervical cancer.