Protein-Protein Interactions as Druggable Targets: Recent Advances
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Pharmacology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 3563
Special Issue Editors
2. Net4Science Academic Spin-off, Università “Magna Græcia” di Catanzaro, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
3. Associazione CRISEA: Centro di Ricerca e Servizi per l’innovazione Rurale, Condoleo di Belcastro (CZ), 88055 Belcastro, CZ, Italy
Interests: medicinal chemistry; computational chemistry; multi-target rational drug design; CADD; structural bioinformatics; chemical databases; drug discovery
Interests: computational chemistry; medicinal chemistry; infectiouse disease; drug repurposing; virtual screening; molecular dynamics; antioxidant activity
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Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The classification of protein–protein interactions (PPIs) as druggable targets is fairly new. Considering “druggability” as the capability to modulate the therapeutic target with small molecules as antagonists of PPI, the first structural insights into it date from 2000. PPIs are more abundant in human cells than single proteins and play numerous crucial roles in cellular processes, including diseases. Therefore, molecules that prevent the formation of these protein complexes could represent a good strategy to treat different diseases. Due to the structural diversity of protein interfaces, one of the main goals in drug discovery is to identify these interfaces and to explore their properties to make promising drugs. Several efforts have been undertaken in the last decade in both industry and academia, but finding a small molecule able to inhibit the interaction in a protein–protein complex remains a hard task. Natural compounds could be an interesting starting point for this purpose. Because of its inherent challenges, new technologies and strategies must be adopted to overcome the many difficulties in the research of finding safe and efficacious drugs for these targets. In this Special Issue, we encourage authors to submit manuscripts in the form of research papers, reviews, or communications that improve the knowledge in this field, contributing to efficient advances in drug discovery research.
Prof. Dr. Stefano Alcaro
Dr. Isabella Romeo
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- protein–protein interactions
- PPI
- antagonist PPI
- PPI drugs
- drug discovery
- interface motifs
- protein interface clustering
- hot regions
- natural bioactive compounds
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