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Nuclear Receptors in Health and Diseases 2.0

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Pathology, Diagnostics, and Therapeutics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 May 2024) | Viewed by 265

Special Issue Editor

1. School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
2. Center for Pharmacogenetics and Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Interests: nuclear receptors; gut microbiota; intestinal and liver physiology; inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer; liver diseases; metabolic diseases; cancers; lipid metabolism; drug metabolism
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nuclear receptors (NRs) are a superfamily of transcription factors, which consist of 48 NRs in the human genome; 24 are ligand-dependent transcription factors. In general, NRs are crucial mediators of health and diseases. They can bind directly to DNA (sequence-specific promoter elements) to regulate the expression of target genes, thereby controlling metabolism, homeostasis, development, and reproduction. Recently, accumulating evidence has emerged suggesting that NRs are ideal pharmacological targets for drug discovery. As a consequence, NRs play a key role in maintaining health and treating multiple diseases.

I guest-edited an initial Special Issue on “Nuclear Receptors in Health and Diseases” in the IJMS in 2022–2023. Despite the global health crisis, 10 papers were published in this Special Issue, which have received, at this point in time, nearly 10,000 views. The impact factor of the IJMS increased dramatically in the previous year, to 6.2, and it is a Q1 as well as top journal in the fields of biochemistry and molecular biology.

This new Special Issue, “Nuclear Receptors in Health and Diseases 2.0”, provides an open access forum that aims to bring together a collection of review and original research articles addressing the functions of NRs in physiological and pathological states. To this end, we welcome contributions that could cover the roles of NRs and their essential signaling pathways as well as metabolic mechanisms in the context of health maintenance and disease pathogenesis. We look forward to providing an exciting resource on the various aspects of the action of NRs, from basic science to applied therapeutic approaches.

Dr. Pengfei Xu
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • nuclear receptors
  • hormone receptors
  • orphan receptors
  • retinoid receptors
  • PPARs
  • PXR
  • CAR
  • LXRs
  • FXR
  • RORs
  • RXRs
  • ERs
  • HNF4s
  • health
  • cancers
  • metabolic diseases
  • drug metabolism
  • agonists and antagonists
  • coactivators and corepressors

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

25 pages, 5005 KiB  
Article
On the Cholesterol Raising Effect of Coffee Diterpenes Cafestol and 16-O-Methylcafestol: Interaction with Farnesoid X Receptor
by Elena Guercia, Federico Berti, Rita De Zorzi, Luciano Navarini, Silvano Geremia, Barbara Medagli, Marco De Conto, Alberto Cassetta and Cristina Forzato
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2024, 25(11), 6096; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms25116096 (registering DOI) - 31 May 2024
Abstract
The diterpene cafestol represents the most potent cholesterol-elevating compound known in the human diet, being responsible for more than 80% of the effect of coffee on serum lipids, with a mechanism still not fully clarified. In the present study, the interaction of cafestol [...] Read more.
The diterpene cafestol represents the most potent cholesterol-elevating compound known in the human diet, being responsible for more than 80% of the effect of coffee on serum lipids, with a mechanism still not fully clarified. In the present study, the interaction of cafestol and 16-O-methylcafestol with the stabilized ligand-binding domain (LBD) of the Farnesoid X Receptor was evaluated by fluorescence and circular dichroism. Fluorescence quenching was observed with both cafestol and 16-O-methylcafestol due to an interaction occurring in the close environment of the tryptophan W454 residue of the protein, as confirmed by docking and molecular dynamics. A conformational change of the protein was also observed by circular dichroism, particularly for cafestol. These results provide evidence at the molecular level of the interactions of FXR with the coffee diterpenes, confirming that cafestol can act as an agonist of FXR, causing an enhancement of the cholesterol level in blood serum. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nuclear Receptors in Health and Diseases 2.0)
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