Multi-Target Approach for Drug Discovery against Schizophrenia.
Int J Mol Sci
; 19(10)2018 Oct 10.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-30309037
Polypharmacology is nowadays considered an increasingly crucial aspect in discovering new drugs as a number of original single-target drugs have been performing far behind expectations during the last ten years. In this scenario, multi-target drugs are a promising approach against polygenic diseases with complex pathomechanisms such as schizophrenia. Indeed, second generation or atypical antipsychotics target a number of aminergic G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) simultaneously. Novel strategies in drug design and discovery against schizophrenia focus on targets beyond the dopaminergic hypothesis of the disease and even beyond the monoamine GPCRs. In particular these approaches concern proteins involved in glutamatergic and cholinergic neurotransmission, challenging the concept of antipsychotic activity without dopamine D2 receptor involvement. Potentially interesting compounds include ligands interacting with glycine modulatory binding pocket on N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, positive allosteric modulators of α-Amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) receptors, positive allosteric modulators of metabotropic glutamatergic receptors, agonists and positive allosteric modulators of α7 nicotinic receptors, as well as muscarinic receptor agonists. In this review we discuss classical and novel drug targets for schizophrenia, cover benefits and limitations of current strategies to design multi-target drugs and show examples of multi-target ligands as antipsychotics, including marketed drugs, substances in clinical trials, and other investigational compounds.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Schizophrenia
/
Antipsychotic Agents
/
Biomarkers
/
Drug Discovery
/
Molecular Targeted Therapy
Type of study:
Etiology_studies
Limits:
Animals
/
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Int J Mol Sci
Year:
2018
Document type:
Article