Title:Drug Repurposing Approaches: Existing Leads for Novel Threats and Drug Targets
Volume: 22
Issue: 3
Author(s): Talambedu Usha, Sushil K. Middha*, Anusha A. Kukanur, Rachamadugu V. Shravani, Mahantesh N. Anupama, Nagasamudram Harshitha, Ameena Rahamath, Sumedha S. Kulkarni and Arvind K. Goyal
Affiliation:
- DBT-BIF Centre, Department of Biotechnology, Maharani Lakshmi Ammanni College for Women(mLAC), Bengaluru, Karnataka,India
Keywords:
Drug repurposing, cancer, COVID-19, computational approaches, phenotypic screening and collaborative models,
phenotypic screening, collaborative models, drug discovery.
Abstract: Drug Repurposing (DR) is an alternative to the traditional drug discovery process. It is
cost and time effective,with high returns and low-risk process that can tackle the increasing need
for interventions for varied diseases and new outbreaks. Repurposing of old drugs for other diseases
has gained wider attention, as there have been several old drugs approved by the FDA for new
diseases. In the global emergency of COVID-19 pandemic, this is one of the strategies implemented
in the repurposing of old anti-infective, anti-rheumatic and anti-thrombotic drugs. The goal of
the current review is to elaborate the process of DR, its advantages, repurposed drugs for a plethora
of disorders, and the evolution of related academic publications. Further, detailed are the computational
approaches: literature mining and semantic inference, network-based drug repositioning, signature
matching, retrospective clinical analysis, molecular docking and experimental phenotypic
screening. We discuss the legal and economic potential barriers in DR, existent collaborative models
and recommendations for overcoming these hurdles and leveraging the complete potential of
DR in finding new indications.
