Novel Target Sites for Drug Screening: A Special Reference to Cancer, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Parkinson’s Disease

Abstract

Background: The humans can be affected by more than 100 types of cancers in which about 22 % cancer death are caused by tobacco, 10% due to alcohol and obesity, 5-10 % by genetic defects and 20 % by infections. Rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disorder, occurs mostly in middle age, affects 2.5 times more to females than males and till 2015, more than 24.5 Million people get affected from this disorder. The deaths due to rheumatoid arthritis were 28000 in 1990 and increased to 38000 in 2013. Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder of central nervous system affects about 6.2 million people in 2015 and responsible for approximately 117400 deaths worldwide. Parkinson’s disease occurs mainly over the age of 60 and males get more affected than females. Methods: Bibliographic database has created by mendeley desktop software for available literature in peer reviewed research articles especially by titles and disease names as keywords with AND Boolean operator (title AND year or author AND year). The intervention and findings of quality papers were extracted by detailed study and a conceptual framework has developed. Results: Total 121 research and review articles are cited in this review to produce high impact in literature for pathophysiology and receptors involved in all three diseases. Changes in enzyme action, prohibition of angiogenesis and inhibition of microtubule are the main areas where anticancer molecules may perform significant effect. The immune system is not a good target for rheumatic treatment due to many complications that occur in body but fibroblast, like synoviocytes, proteases which are responsible for cartilage destruction and osteoclast differentiation may be the beneficial targets for pharmacoactive molecules in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. In Parkinson’s disease, supply of dopamine to brain from outside results in brain dopamine synthesis decrement which increase drug dependency. The compounds which stimulate secretion, reuptake inhibitor and increment in dopaminergic neurons may be good targets. Conclusion: Alteration of signal transduction by a drug is the goal of chemogenomics, a new branch formed by combination of chemistry and genomics. The proliferation, angiogenesis and apoptosis of cancer cells are regulated by cellular signaling of transcription factors, protein kinases, transmembrane receptors, extracellular ligands and some external factors like oncogenic mutations, ubiquitin-proteasome pathway with epigenetic changes. Traditional anticancer drugs either alter DNA synthesis or control cell division while new drugs retard tumor growth or induce apoptosis. The deterioration of dopaminergic neurons in substantia nigra results in Parkinson’s disease with mental confusion, cognitive dysfunction and sleep disorder. Rheumatoid arthritis is characterized by inflammation, autoimmunity, joint destruction, deformity and premature mortality and treated mainly by anti-inflammatory and antirheumatic drugs. This review provides a comprehensive summary of objects which may act as potential targets for many health disorders.