Clopidogrel and proton pump inhibitors-where do we stand in 2012?

Clopidogrel in association with aspirine is considered state of the art of medical treatment for acute coronary syndrome by reducing the risk of new ischemic events.Concomitant treatment with proton pump inhibitors in order to prevent gastrointestinal side effects is recommended by clinical guidelines.Clopidogrel needs metabolic activation predominantly by the hepatic cytochrome P450 isoenzyme Cytochrome 2C19(CYP2C19) and proton pump inhibitors(PPIs) are extensively metabolized by the CYP2C19 isoenzyme as well.Several pharmacodynamic studies investigating a potential clopidogrel-PPI interaction found a significant decrease of the clopidogrel platelet antiaggregation effect for omeprazole,but not for pantoprazole.Initial clinical cohort studies in 2009 reported an increased risk for adverse cardiovascular events,when under clopidogrel and PPI treatment at the same time.These observations led the United States Food and Drug Administration and the European Medecines Agency to discourage the combination of clopidogrel and PPI(especially omeprazole) in the same year.In contrast,more recent retrospective cohort studies including propensity score matching and the only existing randomized trial have not shown any difference concerning adverse cardiovascular events when concomitantly on clopidogrel and PPI or only on clopidogrel.Three meta-analyses report an inverse correlation between clopidogrel-PPI interaction and study quality,with high and moderate quality studies not reporting any association,rising concern about unmeasured confounders biasing the low quality studies.Thus,no definite evidence exists for an effect on mortality.Because PPI induced risk reduction clearly overweighs the possible adverse cardiovascular risk in patients with high risk of gastrointestinal bleeding,combination of clopidogrel with the less CYP2C19 inhibiting pantoprazole should be recommended.

Discovery of direct inhibitors of Keap1–Nrf2 protein–protein interaction as potential therapeutic and preventive agents

The Keap1–Nrf2–ARE pathway is an important antioxidant defense mechanism that protects cells from oxidative stress and the Keap1–Nrf2 protein–protein interaction(PPI) has become an important drug target to upregulate the expression of ARE-controlled cytoprotective oxidative stress response enzymes in the development of therapeutic and preventive agents for a number of diseases and conditions. However, most known Nrf2 activators/ARE inducers are indirect inhibitors of Keap1–Nrf2PPI and they are electrophilic species that act by modifying the sulfhydryl groups of Keap1's cysteine residues. The electrophilicity of these indirect inhibitors may cause "off-target" side effects by reacting with cysteine residues of other important cellular proteins. Efforts have recently been focused on the development of direct inhibitors of Keap1–Nrf2 PPI. This article reviews these recent research efforts including the development of high throughput screening assays, the discovery of peptide and small molecule direct inhibitors, and the biophysical characterization of the binding of these inhibitors to the target Keap1 Kelch domain protein. These non-covalent direct inhibitors of Keap1–Nrf2 PPI could potentially be developed into effective therapeutic or preventive agents for a variety of diseases and conditions.

Necroptosis in inflammatory bowel disease and other intestinal diseases

Guo-Qiang XuFor a long time, it was believed that apoptosis and necrosis were the main pathways for cell death, but a growing body of research has shown that there are other pathways. Among these, necroptosis, a regulatory caspase-independent, programmed cell death pathway, is supposed to be of importance in the pathogenesis of many diseases. The mechanism of regulating, in-ducing and blocking necroptosis is a complex process that involves expression and regulation of a series of molecules including receptor interacting protein kinase 1 （RIPK1）, RIPK3, and mixed lineage kinase like protein. By blocking or downregulating expression of key molecules in the necroptotic pathway, intestinal inflammation can be affected to some extent. In this paper, we introduce the concept of necroptosis, its main pathway, and its impact on the pathogenesis ofinfammatory bowel disease （IBD） and other intestinal diseases, to explore new drug targets for intestinal diseases, including IBD.

Design,synthesis and structure-activity relationship of 4,5-dihydropyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrazol-6(1H)-ones as potent p53-MDM2 inhibitors

In the past decade,the p53-MDM2 protein-protein interaction by small molecules has been confirmed as a successful strategy for cancer therapy.In our previous work,pyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrazol-6（1H）-ones were found to be potent p53-MDM2 inhibitors.Further optimization and structure-activity relationship studies were described in the present work.The result revealed that benzyl group on position N1 of imidazole and bromine on C4-phenyl of pyrrolidone showed higher inhibitory activities.In vitro antiproliferative assay demonstrated the potent p53-MDM2 inhibitor 5c with 4-fold selectivity for U2 OS and Saos-2 cells.These data indicated that 4,5-dihydropyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrazol-6（1H）-one moiety is a valuable scaffold for further development of p53-MDM2 inhibitors.