Molecular Mechanisms and Biomarkers in Drug-Associated Organ Injury

Dear Colleagues,

Biomarkers reflecting, predicting, and associating pharmacological effects and/or toxicological disorders have been widely examined. Candidate molecules that act as potential biomarkers for drug-induced organ toxicity have been discovered. Endogenous compounds are well-applied in the clinical setting, such as creatinine, Na⁺, blood urea nitrogen, aminotransferase, bilirubin, and so on. Despite these classical markers, some peptides and miRNAs have been examined as new types of biomarkers.

In the field of nephrotoxicity, serum creatinine is usually examined for use as a conventional marker for renal damage in clinical treatment. However, this biochemical parameter is acknowledged to be non-specific to cover drug-induced kidney injury. Similar to kidney injury, drug-induced liver, lung, and bone marrow injury are often observed in pharmacotherapy and chemotherapy. Therefore, some organ-specific and/or drug-specific biological markers including functional proteins, peptides, nucleic acids, fatty acids, miRNAs, and so on are required to make accurate diagnosis.

Recently, the research area of biomarkers in pharmacology and toxicology has been expanded to find the physiological and pathophysiological significance in molecular-biological processes. With these exciting findings, this Special issue focuses on “Molecular Mechanisms and Biomarkers in Drug-Associated Organ Injury”.

Prof. Dr. Satohiro Masuda
Guest Editor

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