An article published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry shows a new family of molecules with high affinity to join imidazoline receptors, which are altered in the brain of those patients with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s. According to the preclinical study, the merge of these specific ligands to I2 receptors improves cognitive skills and some biomarkers which are indicators of brain neurodegenerative processes in murine models.
The new study is coordinated by the lecturer M. Carmen Escolano, from the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences (IBUB), and counts on the participation of Javier Luque (IBUB-IQTCUB), Mercè Pallàs (UBNeuro), and Pilar Pérez-Lozano (Unit of Pharmaceutic Technology), among other researchers of UIB, UAB, ICMAB-CSIC, UPV, USC and University of Belgrade and Leuven University,
A multidisciplinary project with a patent in neurosciences
This multidiscipline line of work, unfolded in the frame of a CaixaImpulse project, led to the patent WO 2019/121853, projected in different scenarios with the support from Bosch i Gimpera Foundation (FBG).
With these references, the experts continue with their research to describe pharmaco-technical processes that take place after the administration of the representative ligand in model animals to define the participating metabolites and shape the most accurate therapeutic dose. Another objective is to describe the processes that result from the interaction of the new molecular compound with the receptors (proteomics, signaling pathways, etc.).
Reference article:
Abás, S.; Rodríguez-Arévalo, S.; Bagán, A.; Griñán-Ferré, C.; Vasilopoulou, F.; Brocos-Mosquera, I.; Muguruza, C.; Pérez, B.; Molins, E.; Luque, F. J.; Pérez-Lozano, P.; Jonghe, S.; Daelemans, D.; Naesens, L.; Brea, J.; Loza, M. I.; Hernández-Hernández, E.; García-Sevilla, J. A.; García-Fuster, M. J.; Radan, M.; Djikic, T.; Nikolic, K.; Pallàs, M.; Callado, L. F.; Escolano, M. C. «Bicyclic α‑iminophosphonates as high affinity imidazoline I2 receptor ligands for Alzheimer’s disease». Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, March 2020. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.9b02080
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