A New Use for an Old Drug: Carmofur Attenuates Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-Induced Acute Lung Injury via Inhibition of FAAH and NAAA Activities.

Front Pharmacol. 2019;10:818

Authors: Wu K, Xiu Y, Zhou P, Qiu Y, Li Y

Abstract
Acute lung injury (ALI), characterized by a severe inflammatory process, is a complex syndrome that can lead to multisystem organ failure. Fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) and N-acylethanolamine acid amidase (NAAA) are two potential therapeutic targets for inflammation-related diseases. Herein, we identified carmofur, a 5-fluorouracil-releasing drug and clinically used as a chemotherapeutic agent, as a dual FAAH and NAAA inhibitor. In Raw264.7 macrophages, carmofur effectively reduced the mRNA expression of pro-inflammatory factors, including IL-1β, IL-6, iNOS, and TNF-α, and down-regulated signaling proteins of the nuclear transcription factor κB (NF-κB) pathway. Furthermore, carmofur significantly ameliorated the inflammatory responses and promoted resolution of pulmonary injury in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced ALI mice. The pharmacological effects of carmofur were partially blocked by peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-α (PPARα) antagonist MK886 and cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB2) antagonist SR144528, indicating that carmofur attenuated LPS-induced ALI in a PPARα- and CB2-dependent mechanism. Our study suggested that carmofur might be a novel therapeutic agent for ALI, and drug repurposing may provide us effective therapeutic strategies for ALI.

PMID: 31379583 [PubMed]

Combination Therapy with Disulfiram, Copper, and Doxorubicin for Osteosarcoma: In Vitro Support for a Novel Drug Repurposing Strategy.

Sarcoma. 2019;2019:1320201

Authors: Mandell JB, Lu F, Fisch M, Beumer JH, Guo J, Watters RJ, Weiss KR

Abstract
Although many cancer cells have significantly higher copper concentrations compared with normal cells and tissues, the role of copper in cancer biology and metastatic disease remains poorly understood. Here, we study the importance of copper in osteosarcoma, which frequently metastasizes to the lungs and is often chemoresistant. K12 and K7M2 are murine OS cells with differing metastatic phenotypes: K7M2 is highly metastatic, whereas K12 is much less so. Intracellular copper levels were determined using atomic absorption. Copper transporters were quantified by qPCR. Cytotoxicity of doxorubicin, disulfiram, and copper(II) chloride was assessed with a cell viability fluorescence stain. Additionally, K7M2 viable cell counts were determined by trypan blue exclusion staining after 72 hours of treatment. Copper levels were found to be significantly higher in K12 OS cells than in K7M2 cells. qPCR showed that K12 cells upregulate the copper influx pump CTR1 and downregulate the copper efflux pump ATP7A compared to K7M2 OS cells. Combination treatment of copper chloride (50 nM) with disulfiram (80 nM) was only cytotoxic to K12 cells. Triple treatment with doxorubicin, disulfiram, and copper displayed potent and durable cytotoxicity of highly metastatic K7M2 cells. We demonstrate here that murine OS cell lines differing in metastatic potential also vary in endogenous copper levels and regulation. Additionally, these differences in copper regulation may contribute to selective cytotoxicity of K12 cells by extremely low doses of copper-potentiated disulfiram. The combination of doxorubicin, disulfiram, and copper should be explored as a therapeutic strategy against OS metastases.

PMID: 31379466 [PubMed]

A Systematic Computational Analysis of Human Matrix Metalloproteinase 13 (MMP-13) Crystal Structures and Structure-based Identification of Prospective Drug Candidates as MMP-13 Inhibitors Repurposable for Osteoarthritis.

J Biomol Struct Dyn. 2019 Aug 05;:1-20

Authors: Satish Kumar K, Velayutham R, Roy KK

Abstract
Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis with no available disease-modifying treatments, and is a major cause of disability. Matrix Metalloproteinase 13 (MMP-13) is vital for OA progression and thus, inhibition of MMP-13 is an effective strategy to treat OA. Since the past few decades, drug repurposing has gained substantial popularity worldwide as a time- and cost-effective approach to find new indications for the existing drugs. Therefore, more than 40 X-ray co-crystal structures of the human MMP-13 with bound inhibitors are investigated to gain the structural insights such as conserved direct-interactions with binding site residues, viz. Ala-238, Thr-245 and Thr-247. Afterwards, enrichment study using active and decoy set of ligands revealed three MMP-13 structures (PDB-IDs: 1XUC, 3WV1 and 5BPA) with optimal enrichment performance. Docking-based screening of existing drugs against the three crystal structures followed by binding free-energy calculation suggested drugs viz. eltrombopag, cilostazol and domperidone as potential MMP-13 inhibitors that need further experimental validation. These insights may serve as a potential starting point of further experimental validation and structure-based drug design/repurposing of MMP-13 inhibitors for the treatment of OA.

PMID: 31378153 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Repurposing an inhibitor of ribosomal biogenesis with broad anti-fungal activity.

Sci Rep. 2017 12 05;7(1):17014

Authors: Sun N, Li D, Zhang Y, Killeen K, Groutas W, Calderone R

Abstract
The lack of new antifungal compounds with unique mechanisms of action is a concern for therapeutic management of patients. To identify inhibitors against human pathogenic fungi, we screened ~3000 compounds provided by the Developmental Therapeutics Program of NIH/NCI against a panel of pathogenic fungi including Candida species, Aspergillus fumigatus, and Cryptococcus neoformans. NSC319726 (a thiosemicarbazone) had broad antifungal activity in the range of 0.1-2.0 µg/ml and was also inhibitory to fluconazole-resistant isolates of Candida species. Synergy was demonstrated with NSC319726 and azoles, as well as caspofungin. The inhibitory concentration 50% (IC50) of NSC319726 was 35-800-fold higher than the Minimum Inhibitory Concentration 50% (MIC50 values), which indicates low compound toxicity to human cells in vitro. Transcriptome analysis of treated and untreated C. albicans using Gene Ontology (GO) revealed a large cluster of down regulated genes that encode translational proteins, especially those with ribosome biogenesis functions. As NSC319726 was first shown to have anti-cancer activity, its affects against human pathogenic fungi establish NSC319726 as a repurposed, off-patent compound that has potential antifungal activity. The minimal in vitro toxicity of lead optimized NSC319726 and its reasonable inhibitory activity against pathogens suggest advancing this compound to in vivo toxicity testing and protection studies against candidiasis.

PMID: 29209049 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Small Molecules to Improve ER Proteostasis in Disease.

Trends Pharmacol Sci. 2019 Jul 31;:

Authors: Gonzalez-Teuber V, Albert-Gasco H, Auyeung VC, Papa FR, Mallucci GR, Hetz C

Abstract
Abnormally high levels of misfolded proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) lumen result in a stress state that contributes to the progression of several pathological conditions including diabetes, cancer, neurodegeneration, and immune dysregulation. ER stress triggers a dynamic signaling pathway known as the unfolded protein response (UPR). The UPR enforces adaptive or cell death programs by integrating information about the intensity and duration of the stress stimuli. Thus, depending on the disease context, ER stress signaling can be beneficial or detrimental. We discuss current efforts to develop small molecules to target distinct components of the UPR, and their possible applications in treating human disease, focusing on neurodegenerative diseases, metabolic disorders, and cancer.

PMID: 31377018 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

A genome-wide positioning systems network algorithm for in silico drug repurposing.

Nat Commun. 2019 Aug 02;10(1):3476

Authors: Cheng F, Lu W, Liu C, Fang J, Hou Y, Handy DE, Wang R, Zhao Y, Yang Y, Huang J, Hill DE, Vidal M, Eng C, Loscalzo J

Abstract
Recent advances in DNA/RNA sequencing have made it possible to identify new targets rapidly and to repurpose approved drugs for treating heterogeneous diseases by the 'precise' targeting of individualized disease modules. In this study, we develop a Genome-wide Positioning Systems network (GPSnet) algorithm for drug repurposing by specifically targeting disease modules derived from individual patient's DNA and RNA sequencing profiles mapped to the human protein-protein interactome network. We investigate whole-exome sequencing and transcriptome profiles from ~5,000 patients across 15 cancer types from The Cancer Genome Atlas. We show that GPSnet-predicted disease modules can predict drug responses and prioritize new indications for 140 approved drugs. Importantly, we experimentally validate that an approved cardiac arrhythmia and heart failure drug, ouabain, shows potential antitumor activities in lung adenocarcinoma by uniquely targeting a HIF1α/LEO1-mediated cell metabolism pathway. In summary, GPSnet offers a network-based, in silico drug repurposing framework for more efficacious therapeutic selections.

PMID: 31375661 [PubMed - in process]

Gastroprotective effect of cilostazol against ethanol- and pylorus ligation-induced gastric lesions in rats.

Naunyn Schmiedebergs Arch Pharmacol. 2019 Aug 01;:

Authors: Moawad H, El Awdan SA, Sallam NA, El-Eraky WI, Alkhawlani MA

Abstract
Despite the availability of effective antiulcer medications, their suboptimal safety profile ignites the search for alternative/complementary treatments. Drug repositioning is an attractive, efficient, and low-risk strategy. Cilostazol, a clinically used phosphodiesterase 3 inhibitor, has pronounced anti-inflammatory and vasodilatory effects suggesting antiulcer activity. Using ethanol-induced and pyloric ligation-induced gastric ulcer models, we investigated the gastroprotective effect of cilostazol (5 or 10 mg/kg, p.o.) in comparison with the standard antiulcer ranitidine (50 mg/kg, p.o.) in rats. Gastric mucosa was examined macroscopically, histologically, and biochemically for ulcer severity, markers of oxidative stress, proinflammatory cytokines, apoptotic, and cytoprotective mediators. Gastric acidic output, peptic activity, and mucin content were measured in gastric fluids. Pretreatment with cilostazol reduced ulcer number and severity, ameliorated redox status (reduced glutathione and malonaldehyde content), and decreased levels of IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-훼 in gastric mucosa, in parallel with increases in mucosal defensive factors nitric oxide (NO), prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), and heat-shock protein 70 (HSP70) promoting mucus secretion, tissue perfusion, and regeneration. Histological examination confirmed the beneficial effects of cilostazol in terms of reducing focal necrosis and infiltration of inflammatory cells, as well as increasing mucopolysaccharide content. These beneficial effects are likely secondary to an increase in cAMP and decrease in apoptosis regulator Bcl-2-associated X protein (BAX). Cilostazol, in a dose-dependent effect, exhibited vasodilatory, anti-inflammatory, and antiapoptotic actions in the gastric mucosa resulting in significant antiulcer activity comparable with the standard drug, ranitidine, but devoid of antisecretory activity. Therefore, its use should be dose and ulcer-inducer dependent.

PMID: 31372695 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Inhibitory mechanism of an anticancer drug, Bexarotene against Amyloid β peptide aggregation: Repurposing via neuroinformatics approach.

Curr Pharm Des. 2019 Aug 01;:

Authors: Bibi N, Danish Rizvi SM, Batool A, Kamal MA

Abstract
Aggregation of Amyloid β (Aβ) peptide is a crucial feature of Alzheimer disease (AD) pathogenesis. In fact, Aβ peptides are misfolded and aggregated to frame amyloid fibrils, that is considered as one of the major contributing events in the onset of AD. All these observations have prompted the researchers to design therapeutic molecules with robust anti-Aβ aggregation potential. Interestingly, in the last few decades, drug repurposing has turned into a fruitful and savvy approach for the treatment of several diseases. Bexarotene is an anticancer drug that has been under consideration for its ability to suppress Aβ-peptide aggregation. However, the exact mechanistic aspect of suppression of Aβ-peptide accumulation has not yet been completely revealed. In the present study, we have attempted to decipher the mechanistic aspects of anti-aggregation potential of bexarotene by using the computational biology approach. We have observed the effect of 'Aβ-bexarotene' interaction on the aggregation ability of the Aβ-peptide and decoded the involvement of receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) and beta-secretase (BACE-1). Deep structural analysis of Aβ upon binding with bexarotene revealed critical binding sites and structural twists involved in Aβ aggregation. It is evident from the present that bexarotene could significantly restrain the process of primary nucleation of Aβ. In addition, bexarotene showed a strong interaction with RAGE and BACE-1, suggesting them as plausible targets for the neuro-therapeutic action of bexarotene. Hence, we could safely suggest that bexarotene is a potent drug candidate that could reduce Aβ-peptide aggregation via applying different mechanistic pathways. These results might boost the portfolio of pharmaceutical companies looking for the development of new chemical entity against AD.

PMID: 31368868 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Update on drug-repurposing: is it useful for tackling antimicrobial resistance?

Future Microbiol. 2019 Aug 01;:

Authors: Kaul G, Shukla M, Dasgupta A, Chopra S

PMID: 31368794 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Deep Learning Enhancing Kinome-Wide Polypharmacology Profiling: Model Construction and Experiment Validation.

J Med Chem. 2019 Jul 31;:

Authors: Li X, Li Z, Wu X, Xiong Z, Yang T, Fu Z, Liu X, Tan X, Zhong F, Wan X, Wang D, Ding X, Yang R, Hou H, Li C, Liu H, Chen K, Jiang H, Zheng M

Abstract
The kinome-wide virtual profiling of small molecules with high-dimensional structure-activity data is a challenging task in drug discovery. Here, we present a virtual profiling model against a panel of 391 kinases based on large-scale bioactivity data and the multitask deep neural network algorithm. The obtained model yields excellent internal prediction capability with an auROC of 0.90, and consistently outperforms conventional single-task models on external tests, especially for kinases with insufficient activity data. Moreover, more rigorous experimental validations including 1,410 kinase-compound pairs showed a high-quality average auROC of 0.75 and confirmed many novel predicted "off-target" activities. Given the verified generalizability, the model was further applied to various scenarios for depicting the kinome-wide selectivity, and the association with certain diseases. Overall, the computational model enables us to create a comprehensive kinome interaction network for designing novel chemical modulators or drug repositioning and is of practical value for exploring previously less studied kinases.

PMID: 31364850 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

The leukotriene signaling pathway: a druggable target in Alzheimer's disease.

Drug Discov Today. 2019 02;24(2):505-516

Authors: Michael J, Marschallinger J, Aigner L

Abstract
The underlying pathology of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is complex and includes, besides amyloid beta (Aβ) plaque depositions and neurofibrillary tangles, brain atrophy and neurodegeneration, neuroinflammation, impaired neurogenesis, vascular and blood-brain barrier (BBB) disruptions, neurotransmitter disbalances, and others. Here, we hypothesize that such complex pathologies can only be targeted efficiently through pleiotropic approaches. One interesting drug target is the leukotriene pathway, which mediates various aspects of AD pathology. Approaching this pathway at different levels with genetic and pharmacological tools demonstrated beneficial outcomes in several in vivo studies using different mouse models of AD. Here, we review the current literature on the leukotriene signaling pathway as a target for drug development in AD.

PMID: 30240876 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Lost medicines: a longer view of the pharmaceutical industry with the potential to reinvigorate discovery.

Drug Discov Today. 2019 02;24(2):382-389

Authors: Kinch MS, Kinch GA, Griesenauer RH

Abstract
It is widely understood that the 1962 Kefauver-Harris Amendment to the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act ushered in the modern regulation of medicines requiring a combination of safety and efficacy. However, fewer appreciate the amendment was applied retroactively to virtually all medicines sold in the USA. For various reasons, many medicines faded into history. Here, we identify and analyze >1600 medicines (including over-the-counter drugs) and their innovators prior to the enactment of Kefauver-Harris. We report 880 of these past medicines are no longer accessible. This project also reveals new insight into the pharmaceutical enterprise, which reveals an industry already mature and beginning to retract before enactment of the legislation. Beyond its historical implications, the recollection of these medicines could offer potential starting points for the future development of much-needed drugs.

PMID: 30223039 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Genome-wide scan identifies opioid overdose risk locus close to MCOLN1.

Addict Biol. 2019 Jul 30;:e12811

Authors: Cheng Z, Yang BZ, Zhou H, Nunez Y, Kranzler HR, Gelernter J

Abstract
The United States is experiencing the worst opioid overdose (OpOD) crisis in its history. We carried out a genome-wide association study on OpOD severity among 3 477 opioid-exposed individuals, 1 019 of whom experienced OpODs, including 2 032 European Americans (EAs) (653 overdose cases), and 1 445 African Americans (AAs) (366 overdose cases). Participants were scored 1 to 4 based on their reported overdose status and the number of times that medical treatment was required. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) of EAs and AAs separately resulted in two genome-wide significant (GWS) signals in AAs but none in EAs. The first signal was represented by three closely mapped variants (rs115208233, rs116181528, and rs114077267) located near mucolipin 1 (MCOLN1) and patatin-like phospholipase domain containing 6 (PNPLA6), and the other signal was represented by rs369098800 near dead-box helicase 18 (DDX18). There were no additional GWS signals in the trans-population meta-analysis, so that post-GWAS analysis focused on these loci. In network analysis, MCOLN1 was coexpressed with PNPLA6, but only MCOLN1-associated genes were enriched in functional categories relevant to OpOD, including calcium and cation channel activities; no enrichment was observed for PNPLA6-associated genes. Drug repositioning analysis was carried out in the connectivity map (CMap) database for MCOLN1 (PNPLA6 was not available in CMap) and showed that the opioid agonist drug-induced expression profile is similar to that of MCOLN1 overexpression and yielded the highest-ranked expression profile of 83 drug classes. Thus, MCOLN1 may be a risk gene for OpOD, but replication is needed. This knowledge could be helpful in the identification of drug targets for preventing OpOD.

PMID: 31362332 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

A Web Tool for Ranking Candidate Drugs Against a Selected Disease Based on a Combination of Functional and Structural Criteria.

Comput Struct Biotechnol J. 2019;17:939-945

Authors: Karatzas E, Minadakis G, Kolios G, Delis A, Spyrou GM

Abstract
Drug repurposing techniques allow existing drugs to be tested against diseases outside their initial spectrum, resulting in reduced cost and eliminating the long time-frames of new drug development. In silico drug repurposing further speeds up the process either by proposing drugs suitable to invert the transcriptomic profile of a disease or by indicating drugs based on their common targets or structural similarity with other drugs with similar mode of action. Such methods usually return a number of potential repurposed drugs that need to be tested against the disease in in vitro, pre-clinical and clinical studies. Thus, it is crucial to have a more sophisticated candidate drug ranking in order to start testing from the most promising chemical substances. As a means to enhance the above decision process, we present CoDReS (Composite Drug Reranking Scoring), a drug (re-)ranking web-based tool, which combines an initial drug ranking (i.e. repurposing score or hypothesis/potentiality score) with a functional score of each drug considered in conjunction with the disease under study as well as with a structural score derived from potential drugability violations. Furthermore, a structural similarity clustering is applied on the considered drugs and a handful of structural exemplars are suggested for further in vitro and in vivo validation. The user is able to filter the results further, through structural similarity examination of the candidate drugs with drugs that have failed against the queried disease where related clinical trials have been carried out. CoDReS is publicly available online at http://bioinformatics.cing.ac.cy/codres.

PMID: 31360332 [PubMed]

A selective membrane-targeting repurposed antibiotic with activity against persistent methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 Jul 29;:

Authors: Kim W, Zou G, Hari TPA, Wilt IK, Zhu W, Galle N, Faizi HA, Hendricks GL, Tori K, Pan W, Huang X, Steele AD, Csatary EE, Dekarske MM, Rosen JL, Ribeiro NQ, Lee K, Port J, Fuchs BB, Vlahovska PM, Wuest WM, Gao H, Ausubel FM, Mylonakis E

Abstract
Treatment of Staphylococcus aureus infections is complicated by the development of antibiotic tolerance, a consequence of the ability of S. aureus to enter into a nongrowing, dormant state in which the organisms are referred to as persisters. We report that the clinically approved anthelmintic agent bithionol kills methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) persister cells, which correlates with its ability to disrupt the integrity of Gram-positive bacterial membranes. Critically, bithionol exhibits significant selectivity for bacterial compared with mammalian cell membranes. All-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations demonstrate that the selectivity of bithionol for bacterial membranes correlates with its ability to penetrate and embed in bacterial-mimic lipid bilayers, but not in cholesterol-rich mammalian-mimic lipid bilayers. In addition to causing rapid membrane permeabilization, the insertion of bithionol increases membrane fluidity. By using bithionol and nTZDpa (another membrane-active antimicrobial agent), as well as analogs of these compounds, we show that the activity of membrane-active compounds against MRSA persisters positively correlates with their ability to increase membrane fluidity, thereby establishing an accurate biophysical indicator for estimating antipersister potency. Finally, we demonstrate that, in combination with gentamicin, bithionol effectively reduces bacterial burdens in a mouse model of chronic deep-seated MRSA infection. This work highlights the potential repurposing of bithionol as an antipersister therapeutic agent.

PMID: 31358625 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

6 new pubmed citations were retrieved for your search. Click on the search hyperlink below to display the complete search results:

"drug repositioning" OR "drug repurposing"

These pubmed results were generated on 2019/07/30

PubMed comprises more than millions of citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.

Induction of endoplasmic reticulum stress and inhibition of colon carcinogenesis by the anti-helmintic drug rafoxanide.

Cancer Lett. 2019 Jul 24;:

Authors: Laudisi F, Di Grazia A, De Simone V, Cherubini F, Colantoni A, Ortenzi A, Franzè E, Dinallo V, Di Fusco D, Monteleone I, Fearon ER, Monteleone G, Stolfi C

Abstract
Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. Drug repositioning is a promising approach for new cancer therapies, as it provides the opportunity to rapidly advance potentially promising agents into clinical trials. The FDA-approved anti-helminthic drug rafoxanide was recently reported to antagonize the oncogenic function of the BRAF V600E mutant protein, commonly found in CRCs, as well as to inhibit the proliferation of skin cancer cells. These observations prompted us to investigate the potential anti-cancer effects of rafoxanide in CRC models. We found rafoxanide inhibited proliferation in CRC cells, but not in normal colonic epithelial cells. Rafoxanide's anti-proliferative action was associated with marked reduction in cyclin D1 protein levels and accumulation of cells in the G0/G1 phase. These effects relied on selective induction of the endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) response in CRC cells and were followed by caspase-dependent cell death. Systemic administration of rafoxanide to ApcMin/+ mice induced to develop CRCs caused ERS activation, proliferation inhibition and apoptosis induction in the neoplastic cells. Collectively, our data suggest rafoxanide might be repurposed as an anti-cancer drug for the treatment of CRC.

PMID: 31351087 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Inferring Drug-Related Diseases Based on Convolutional Neural Network and Gated Recurrent Unit.

Molecules. 2019 Jul 25;24(15):

Authors: Xuan P, Zhao L, Zhang T, Ye Y, Zhang Y

Abstract
Predicting novel uses for drugs using their chemical, pharmacological, and indication information contributes to minimizing costs and development periods. Most previous prediction methods focused on integrating the similarity and association information of drugs and diseases. However, they tended to construct shallow prediction models to predict drug-associated diseases, which make deeply integrating the information difficult. Further, path information between drugs and diseases is important auxiliary information for association prediction, while it is not deeply integrated. We present a deep learning-based method, CGARDP, for predicting drug-related candidate disease indications. CGARDP establishes a feature matrix by exploiting a variety of biological premises related to drugs and diseases. A novel model based on convolutional neural network (CNN) and gated recurrent unit (GRU) is constructed to learn the local and path representations for a drug-disease pair. The CNN-based framework on the left of the model learns the local representation of the drug-disease pair from their feature matrix. As the different paths have discriminative contributions to the drug-disease association prediction, we construct an attention mechanism at the path level to learn the informative paths. In the right part, a GRU-based framework learns the path representation based on path information between the drug and the disease. Cross-validation results indicate that CGARDP performs better than several state-of-the-art methods. Further, CGARDP retrieves more real drug-disease associations in the top part of the prediction result that are of concern to biologists. Case studies on five drugs demonstrate that CGARDP can discover potential drug-related disease indications.

PMID: 31349692 [PubMed - in process]

10 new pubmed citations were retrieved for your search. Click on the search hyperlink below to display the complete search results:

"drug repositioning" OR "drug repurposing"

These pubmed results were generated on 2019/07/25

PubMed comprises more than millions of citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.

Repurposing antihypertensive drugs for the prevention of Alzheimer's disease: a Mendelian randomization study.

Int J Epidemiol. 2019 Jul 23;:

Authors: Walker VM, Kehoe PG, Martin RM, Davies NM

Abstract
BACKGROUND: Evidence concerning the potential repurposing of antihypertensives for Alzheimer's disease prevention is inconclusive. We used Mendelian randomization, which can be more robust to confounding by indication and patient characteristics, to investigate the effects of lowering systolic blood pressure, via the protein targets of different antihypertensive drug classes, on Alzheimer's disease.
METHODS: We used summary statistics from genome-wide association studies of systolic blood pressure and Alzheimer's disease in a two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis. We identified single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that mimic the action of antihypertensive protein targets and estimated the effect of lowering systolic blood pressure on Alzheimer's disease in three ways: (i) combining the protein targets of antihypertensive drug classes, (ii) combining all protein targets and (iii) without consideration of the protein targets.
RESULTS: There was limited evidence that lowering systolic blood pressure, via the protein targets of antihypertensive drug classes, affected Alzheimer's disease risk. For example, the protein targets of calcium channel blockers had an odds ratio (OR) per 10 mmHg lower systolic blood pressure of 1.53 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.94 to 2.49; p = 0.09; SNPs = 17]. We also found limited evidence for an effect when combining all protein targets (OR per 10 mmHg lower systolic blood pressure: 1.14; 95% CI: 0.83 to 1.56; p = 0.41; SNPs = 59) and without consideration of the protein targets (OR per 10 mmHg lower systolic blood pressure: 1.04; 95% CI: 0.95 to 1.13; p = 0.45; SNPs = 153).
CONCLUSIONS: Mendelian randomization suggests that lowering systolic blood pressure via the protein targets of antihypertensive drugs is unlikely to affect the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Consequently, if specific antihypertensive drug classes do affect the risk of Alzheimer's disease, they may not do so via systolic blood pressure.

PMID: 31335937 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]