Magnolol, a neolignan compound isolated from traditional Chinese medicine Magnolia officinalis, has a potentially therapeutic influence on ischemic stroke. Previous studies have demonstrated that cerebral ischemia-reperfusion (I-R) and blood-brain barrier (BBB) are involved in the pathogeneses of stroke. Therefore, in vivo and in vitro studies were designed to investigate the effects of magnolol on I-R-induced neural injury and BBB dysfunction. In cerebral I-R model of mice, cerebral infarct volumes, brain water content, and the exudation of Evans blue were significantly reduced by intravenous injection with magnolol at the doses of 1.4, 7.0, and 35.0 μg/kg. When primary cultured microglial cells were treated with 1 μg/ml lipopolysaccharide (LPS) plus increasing concentrations of magnolol, ranging from 0.01 to 10 μmol/L, magnolol could statistically inhibit LPS-induced NO release, TNF-α secretion, and expression of p65 subunit of NF-κB in the nucleus of microglial cells. In the media of brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs), oxygen and glucose deprivation-reperfusion (OGD-R) could remarkably lead to the elevation of TNF-α and IL-1β levels, while magnolol evidently reversed these effects. In BBB model in vitro, magnolol dose- and time-dependently declined BBB hyperpermeability induced by oxygen and glucose deprivation (OGD), OGD-R, and ephrin-A1 treatment. More importantly, magnolol could obviously inhibit phosphorylation of EphA2 (p-EphA2) not only in ephrin-A1-treated BMECs but also in cerebral I-R model of mice. In contrast to p-EphA2, magnolol significantly increased ZO-1 and occludin levels in BMECs subjected to OGD. Taken together, magnolol can protect neural damage from cerebral ischemia- and OGD-reperfusion, which may be associated with suppressing cerebral inflammation and improving BBB function.
The blood coagulation enzyme factor Xa (FXa) is a particularly promising target for anticoagulant therapy, and identification of oral small-molecule inhibitors of FXa remains a research focus. On the basis of the X-ray crystal structure of FXa and its inhibitor rivaroxaban, we designed and synthesized a series of conformationally restricted mimics containing a novel [6,6,5] tricyclic fused oxazolidinone scaffold. Intensive structure-activity relationship (SAR) and structure-pharmacokinetic relationship (SPR) studies on this new series led to the discovery of compound 11a: a highly potent, selective, direct, and orally bioavailable FXa inhibitor with excellent in vivo antithrombotic efficacy and preferable pharmacokinetic profiles. Druggability evaluation of compound 11a was undertaken and elicited positive outcomes. All results indicate that compound 11a is a promising drug candidate for the prevention and treatment of thromboembolic diseases in venous and arterial systems.
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