Resumo em Inglês:

Few Zika virus (ZIKV) outbreaks had been reported since its first detection in 1947, until the recent epidemics occurred in South America (2014/2015) and expeditiously became a global public health emergency. This arbovirus reached 0.5-1.3 million cases of ZIKV infection in Brazil in 2015 and rapidly spread in new geographic areas such as the Americas. Despite the mild symptoms of the Zika fever, the major concern is related to the related severe neurological disorders, especially microcephaly in newborns. Advances in ZIKV drug discovery have been made recently and constitute promising approaches to ZIKV treatment. In this review, we summarize current computational drug discovery efforts and their applicability to discovery of anti-ZIKV drugs. Lastly, we present successful examples of the use of computational approaches to ZIKV drug discovery.

Resumo em Inglês:

Urban population around the globe is direct exposed to the pollution caused by several sources (vehicles, industries, smokes etc.) and primary pollutants are divided in particulate matter and toxic gases. Current researches in populous countries indicated that exposure to pollution could affect sebum composition, stratum corneum quality and signs of skin aging. Hair and scalp are also affected by the excessive exposure to pollutants, resulting in a dull, dry and lifeless appearance. Cosmetics have been evolved conceptual and scientifically to achieve substantial effectiveness against pollution damaging on the cutaneous tissue, involving the development of innovative multipurpose active ingredients and efficacy tests, skilled to prove the protection and benefits of such personal care products. In this review, we highlighted the skin and hair/scalp damages provoked by the main environmental pollutants and the active substances used in antipollution cosmetics/personal care products with the respective mechanisms of action. Likewise, in vitro and in vivo efficacy tests were discussed concerning the antipollution claim substantiating.

Resumo em Inglês:

Natural products (NPs) are an excellent source of biologically active molecules that provide many biologically biased features that enable innovative designing of synthetic compounds. NPs are characterized by high content of sp3-hybridized carbon atoms; oxygen; spiro, bridged, and linked systems; and stereogenic centers, with high structural diversity. To date, several approaches have been implemented for mapping and navigating into the chemical space of NPs to explore the different aspects of chemical space. The approaches providing novel opportunities to synthesize NP-inspired compound libraries involve NP-based fragments and ring distortion strategies. These methodologies allow access to areas of chemical space that are less explored, and consequently help to overcome the limitations in the use of NPs in drug discovery, such as lack of accessibility and synthetic intractability. In this review, we describe how NPs have recently been used as a platform for the development of diverse compounds with high structural and stereochemical complexity. In addition, we show developed strategies aiming to reengineer NPs toward the expansion of NP-based chemical space by fragment-based approaches and chemical degradation to yield novel compounds to enable drug discovery.

Resumo em Inglês:

Dyslipidemia, diabetes, obesity and hypertension are common metabolic diseases. In the last decades, unhealthy lifestyle and aging have leads to an increased incidence of these diseases, increasing morbidity and mortality by cardiovascular causes. The treatment of metabolic diseases includes life-style interventions as healthy diet and physical exercise, as well as pharmacological interventions. Several drugs are available for the management of metabolic diseases including among others lipid-lowering antidiabetics and antihypertensive drugs. Variability in response to these drugs is influenced by both genetic and non-genetic factors. Polymorphisms in genes related to drug pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics have been shown to influence drug efficacy and safety. This review is focused on pharmacogenetic studies related to the management of metabolic diseases in samples of the Brazilian population. Associations of variants in drug metabolizing enzymes and transporters, drug target and metabolism-related genes with the efficacy and safety of lipid-lowering, antidiabetic and antihypertensive drugs are described. Most pharmacogenetic studies in Brazil have focused in pharmacological response to a small group of drugs, as statins and some antihypertensives, while there are almost no studies on antidiabetic and antiobesity drugs. Some studies reported significant associations of gene polymorphisms with drug response confirming previous data from other populations, whereas other works did not replicate, which may relay on the genetic admixture of our population. In conclusion, further studies are necessary considering larger sample sizes, new unexplored drugs and more genetic variants to obtain stronger conclusions to explore clinical applications of pharmacogenetic studies in our population.

Resumo em Inglês:

According to Quality by Design (QbD) concept, quality should be built into product/method during pharmaceutical/analytical development. Usually, there are many input factors that may affect quality of product and methods. Recently, Design of Experiments (DoE) have been widely used to understand the effects of multidimensional and interactions of input factors on the output responses of pharmaceutical products and analytical methods. This paper provides theoretical and practical considerations for implementation of Design of Experiments (DoE) in pharmaceutical and/or analytical Quality by Design (QbD). This review illustrates the principles and applications of the most common screening designs, such as two-level full factorial, fractionate factorial, and Plackett-Burman designs; and optimization designs, such as three-level full factorial, central composite designs (CCD), and Box-Behnken designs. In addition, the main aspects related to multiple regression model adjustment were discussed, including the analysis of variance (ANOVA), regression significance, residuals analysis, determination coefficients (R2, R2-adj, and R2-pred), and lack-of-fit of regression model. Therefore, DoE was presented in detail since it is the main component of pharmaceutical and analytical QbD.

Resumo em Inglês:

The use of serum containing polyclonal antibodies from animals immunized with toxins marked the beginning of the application of antibody-based therapy in late nineteenth century. Advances in basic research led to the development of the hybridoma technology in 1975. Eleven years later, the first therapeutic monoclonal antibody (mAb) was approved, and since then, driven by technological advances, the development of mAbs has played a prominent role in the pharmaceutical industry. In this review, we present the developments to circumvent problems of safety and efficacy arising from the murine origin of the first mAbs and generate structures more similar to human antibodies. As of October 2017, there are 61 mAbs and 11 Fc-fusion proteins in clinical use. An overview of all mAbs currently approved is provided, showing the development of sophisticated mAbs formats that were engineered based on the challenges posed by therapeutic indications, including antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) and glycoengineered mAbs. In the field of immunotherapy, the use of immunomodulators, bispecific mAbs and CAR-T cells are highlighted. As an example of promising therapy to treat infectious diseases, we discuss the generation of neutralizing monoclonal-oligoclonal antibodies obtained from human B cells. Scientific and technological advances represent mAbs successful translation to the clinic.

Resumo em Inglês:

Topical drug delivery is an interesting approach to treat skin diseases and to avoid pain and low patient compliance in cases where a systemic delivery is required. However, the stratum corneum, which is the outermost skin layer, strongly protects the body from the entrance of substances, especially those hydrophilic. In this context, different physical methods have been studied to overcome the stratum corneum barrier and facilitate penetration of drugs into or through the skin. Among them, iontophoresis, low-frequency ultrasound and microneedles have been widely employed for transdermal drug delivery. More recently, they are also studied to aid in the treatment of dermatological disorders, such as skin tumors and inflammation. Basically, iontophoresis refers to the movement of charged and non-charged hydrophilic molecules through the skin due to the application of a low constant electric current and the contributions of electromigration and electroosmosis. In low-frequency ultrasound, cavitation is the main mechanism for skin permeabilization that consists on the formation of microbubbles that disorganize the stratum corneum. Microneedles are microprojections, minimally invasive, that can be designed with different lengths, materials and geometry to increase skin permeability. In this review, concepts, mechanisms and applications of these three physical methods will be presented and discussed with focus on their use in dermatological treatments. Moreover, comparative studies using different physical methods will be presented and also some clinical perspectives will be addressed.

Resumo em Inglês:

The covalent attachment of polyethylene glycol (PEG) to therapeutical proteins is an important route to develop biobetters for biomedical, biotech and pharmaceutical industries. PEG conjugation can shield antigenic epitopes of the protein, reduce degradation by proteolytic enzymes, enhance long-term stability and maintain or even improve pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics characteristics of the protein drug. Nonetheless, correct information in terms of the PEGylation process from reaction to downstream processing is of paramount importance for the industrial application and processing scale-up. In this review we present and discuss the main steps in protein PEGylation, namely: PEGylation reaction, separation of the products and final characterization of structure and activity of the resulting species. These steps are not trivial tasks, reason why bioprocessing operations based on PEGylated proteins relies on the use of analytical tools according to the specific pharmaceutical conjugate that is being developed. Therefore, the appropriate selection of the technical and analytical methods may ensure success in implementing a feasible industrial process.

Resumo em Inglês:

The pharmaceutical industry is increasingly joining chemoinformatics in the search for the development of new drugs to be used in the treatment of diseases. These computational studies have the advantage of being less expensive and optimize the study time, and thus the interest in this area is increasing. Among the techniques used is the development of multitarget directed ligands (MTDLs), which has become an ascending technique, mainly due to the improvement in the quality of treatment involving several drugs. Multitarget therapy is more effective than traditional drug therapy that emphasizes maximum selectivity for a single target. In this review a multitarget drug survey was carried out as a promising strategy in several important diseases: neglected diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, AIDS, and cancer. In addition, we discuss Computer-Aided Drug Design (CADD) techniques as a tool in the projection of multitarget compounds against these diseases.