Title:Curcumin, Resveratrol and Cannabidiol as Natural Key Prototypes in
Drug Design for Neuroprotective Agents
Volume: 20
Issue: 7
Author(s): Flávia P. Dias Viegas, Vanessa Silva Gontijo, Matheus de Freitas Silva, Cindy Juliet Cristancho Ortiz, Graziella dos Reis Rosa Franco, Januário Tomás Ernesto, Caio Miranda Damasio, Isabela Marie Fernandes Silva, Thâmara Gaspar Campos and Claudio Viegas*
Affiliation:
- PeQuiM - Laboratory of Research in Medicinal Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry, Federal University of Alfenas, Alfenas, 37133-840, Brazil
- Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Farmacêuticas, Federal University of Alfenas, Alfenas, 37133-840, Brazil
- Programa de Pós-Graduação em Química, Federal University of Alfenas, 37133-840, Alfenas, Brazil
Keywords:
Neuroprotection, neurodegenerative diseases, curcumin, resveratrol, cannabidiol, rational drug design, molecular hybridization.
Abstract: Nowadays, neurodegenerative diseases (NDs), such as Parkinson’s disease (PD), Alzheimer’s
disease (AD), Huntington’s disease (HD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), represent
a great challenge in different scientific fields, such as neuropharmacology, medicinal chemistry,
molecular biology and medicine, as all these pathologies remain incurable, with high socioeconomic
impacts and high costs for governmental health services. Due to their severity and multifactorial
pathophysiological complexity, the available approved drugs for clinic have not yet shown
adequate effectiveness and exhibited very restricted options in the therapeutic arsenal; this highlights
the need for continued drug discovery efforts in the academia and industry. In this context,
natural products, such as curcumin (1), resveratrol (2) and cannabidiol (CBD, 3) have been recognized
as important sources, with promising chemical entities, prototype models and starting materials
for medicinal organic chemistry, as their molecular architecture, multifunctional properties and
single chemical diversity could facilitate the discovery, optimization and development of innovative
drug candidates with improved pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics compared to the known
drugs and, perhaps, provide a chance for discovering novel effective drugs to combat NDs. In this
review, we report the most recent efforts of medicinal chemists worldwide devoted to the exploration
of curcumin (1), resveratrol (2) and cannabidiol (CBD, 3) as starting materials or privileged
scaffolds in the design of multi-target directed ligands (MTDLs) with potential therapeutic properties
against NDs, which have been published in the scientific literature during the last 10 years of
research and are available in PubMed, SCOPUS and Web of Science databases.
