Achillea santolina, Nepeta cataria and Salvia bucharica are mainly known to possess antispasmodic use in traditional medicine. The essential oils from these plants were screened for their possible pharmacological activity with possible mode of action explored. Volatile oil was extracted by steam distillation using standard procedure given in British Pharmacopoeia 2001. For pharmacological activ...

It is widely accepted that small-molecule drugs, despite their selectivity at primary targets, exert pharmacological effects (and safety liabilities) through a multiplicity of pathways. As such, it has proved extremely difficult to experimentally assess polypharmacology in an agnostic fashion. Profiling of metabolites produced as part of physiological responses to pharmacological stimuli provid...

The CB1 and CB2 cannabinoid receptors are members of the G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) family that are pharmacologically well defined. However, the discovery of additional sites of action for endocannabinoids as well as synthetic cannabinoid compounds suggests the existence of additional cannabinoid receptors. Here we review this evidence, as well as the current nomenclature for classifying...

    Fibrates, as hypolipidemic drugs known as agonists of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors, diminish inflammatory responses. Studies have shown that incorporation of a silicon atom into a drug structure improves its pharmacological potency, modifies its selectivity toward a given target, or changes its metabolic rate, in addition to increasing the lipophilicity of the compounds. A si...

The discovery of chemotherapeutic agents for the treatment of cancer commonly uses cell proliferation assays in which cells grow as two-dimensional (2D) monolayers. Compounds identified using 2D monolayer assays often fail to advance during clinical development, most likely because these assays do not reproduce the cellular complexity of tumors and their microenvironment in vivo. The use of thr...