A novel carbamate prodrug 2 containing a pentagastrin moiety was synthesized. 2 was designed as a detoxified analogue of the highly cytotoxic natural antibiotic duocarmycin SA (1) for the use in a targeted prodrug monotherapy of cancers expressing cholecystokinin (CCK-B)/gastrin receptors. The synthesis of prodrug 2 was performed using a palladium-catalyzed carbonylation of bromide 6, followed ...

Patients have responded well to the multi-targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) Sunitinib in the clinic. But the severe toxic side effects associated with Sunitinib limit its therapeutic index. To improve the therapeutic index of Sunitinib, a prodrug strategy was employed to modify Sunitinib. The inactive prodrug AST-003 can be converted to Sunitinib in vitro and in vivo. Compared with Sunit...

This study aimed to explore and evaluate the tolerability and antiviral activity of pegylated recombinant human consensus interferon-α (PEG-CIFN) in adults with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. A total of 48 adult subjects chronically infected with HCV were divided into five groups, which were treated separately with PEG-CIFN 1.0 µg/kg (n=10), 1.5 µg/kg (n=10), 2.0 µg/kg (n=9) or 3.0 µg/kg (n...

Sulphonamide motif is found extensively in numerous chemotherapeutic drug candidates, it acts by stopping the production of folate inside bacterial cell. Current research has established synthesis and characterization new bioprecursor prodrugs sulfadiazine. The first prodrug, 3, was synthesized via coupling diazonium salt sulfadiazine with ethyl acetoacetate AcONa at 0 °C. second sulfadiazine-p...

Driven by the promises of gene therapy, PEGylated cationic liposomes (CLs) have been investigated for decades, but their use in the clinical setting is far from established. Such a dichotomy is due to several factors that have been ignored over the last two decades. The hardest challenge seems to occur when PEGylated CLs come into contact with a physiological environment (e.g. the blood). Recen...

Cardiac arrhythmias and syncope are rare consequence of therapy with pegylated interferon. We report a 55-year-old Egyptian woman who developed palpitation and syncopal attacks twice within 3 months after starting therapy with pegylated interferon alpha2b and ribavirin for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus. Hepatitis C virus-RNA was undetectable after 12 week. The electrocardiogram hol...

We have reported that PEGylated liposomes lose their long-circulating properties when they are administered repeatedly at certain intervals to the same animal. This unexpected phenomenon is referred to as the accelerated blood clearance (ABC) phenomenon. We recently showed that the ABC phenomenon is triggered via the abundant secretion of anti-PEG IgM in response to the first dose of PEGylated ...

Polyethylene glycol-functionalized gold nanoparticles (PEGylated AuNPs) have been widely used as nanocarriers for the delivery of various drugs. However, little attention has been paid to whether the PEGylated AuNPs could affect the primary function of human erythrocytes, which is the main cellular component in the blood. In the current study, we show that both the deformability and oxygen-deli...

Pathological retinal neovascularization and choroidal neovascularization are major causes of vision loss in a variety of clinical conditions, such as retinopathy of prematurity, age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy. Pigment epithelial-derived factor (PEDF) has been found to be the most potent natural, endogenous inhibitor of neovascularization, but its application is restr...