Survival from pancreatic cancer remains poor. Conventional treatment has resulted in only marginal improvements in survival compared with survival in the previous several decades. Thus, considerable interest has emerged regarding the potential use of common pharmaceutical agents as chemopreventative and chemotherapeutic options. Aspirin, metformin, statins, β-blockers, and bisphosphonates have ...

The widespread resistance of malaria parasites to all affordable drugs has made the identification of new targets urgent. Dipeptidyl aminopeptidases (DPAPs) represent potentially valuable new targets that are involved in hemoglobin degradation (DPAP1) and parasite egress (DPAP3). Here we use activity-based probes to demonstrate that specific inhibition of DPAP1 by a small molecule results in th...

Diabetes management during Ramadan fasting is challenging to the physician in terms of minimizing the risk of hypoglycemia. As compared to oral hypoglycemic agents (OHAs) and sulfonylureas (SUs), which carry a higher and significant risk of hypoglycemia, newer antidiabetic agents such as dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors have demonstrated lower risk of hypoglycemia during Ramadan fastin...

The increasing prevalence of atherosclerosis has become a worldwide health concern. Although significant progress has been made in the understanding of atherosclerosis pathogenesis, the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Recent studies suggest dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP4), a regulator of inflammation and metabolism, may be involved in the development of atherosclerotic diseases. T...

Dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP-4) enzyme is responsible for the degradation of incretins that stimulates insulin secretion and hence inhibition of DPP-4 becomes an established approach for the treatment of type 2 diabetics. We studied the interaction between DPP-4 and its inhibitor drugs (sitagliptin 1, linagliptin 2, alogliptin 3, and teneligliptin 4) quantitatively by using fragment molecular o...

Quaternary benzo[c]phenanthridine alkaloids (QBA), fagaronine (FA), sanguinarine (SA), chelerythrine (CHE) and the QBA extract from Macleya cordata (EX) exerted differential inhibitory effect on the hydrolytic activity of particular dipeptidyl peptidase (DPP)-like enzyme isolated from human blood plasma and from human and rat glioma cell lines. The low-MW form of DPP-IV-like enzyme activity, co...

Many patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are unable to achieve adequate glycemic control. Of the approximately 19 million individuals with T2DM in the United States, only about a third achieve the hemoglobin A(1c) (HbA(1c)0 goal set forth by the American Diabetes Association (HbA(1c) <7% [6% if it can be achieved safely]). The incretin mimetics are a new class of medications available...

While CXCL10 is known as a proinflammatory chemokine that is responsible for recruiting activated lymphocytes to the liver in HCV infected patients, elevated levels of CXCL10 were surprisingly shown to be a negative prognostic marker for response to therapy Development of an assay to discriminate between native and truncated CXCL10 chemokine Serial panning of the HuCAL PLATINUM® antibody librar...

Dipeptidyl peptidase I (DPPI) is a lysosomal cysteine protease that has been implicated in the processing of granzymes, which are neutral serine proteases exclusively expressed in the granules of activated cytotoxic lymphocytes. In this report, we show that cytotoxic lymphocytes derived from DPPI-/- mice contain normal amounts of granzymes A and B, but these molecules retain their prodipeptide ...

This review considers the therapeutic choices currently faced by people with type 2 diabetes and those caring for them when glucose levels initially controlled with lifestyle management and metformin start to rise. While sulphonylureas are familiar agents and cheaper than other alternatives, they cause hypoglycaemia and modest weight gain, and robust outcome data are still lacking. Dipeptidyl p...