27 documents found, page 1 of 3
Cell Model of Depression: Reduction of Cell Stress with Mirtazapine
Correia, AS; Fraga, S; Teixeira, JP; Vale, NDepression is a very prevalent and complex disease. This condition is associated with a high rate of relapse, making its treatment a challenge. Thus, an intensive investigation of this disease and its treatment is necessary. In this work, through cell viability assays (MTT and neutral red assays) and alkaline comet assays, we aimed to test the induction of stress in human SH-SY5Y cells through the application o...
Model amphipathic peptide coupled with tacrine to improve its antiproliferative...
Silva, S; Alves, C; Duarte, D; Costa, A; Sarmento, B; Almeida, AJ; Gomes, P; Vale, NDrug repurposing and drug combination are two strategies that have been widely used to overcome the traditional development of new anticancer drugs. Several FDA-approved drugs for other indications have been tested and have demonstrated beneficial anticancer effects. In this connection, our research group recently reported that Tacrine, used to treat Alzheimer’s Disease, inhibits the growth of breast cancer MCF...
New insight into breast cancer cells involving drug combinations for dopamine a...
Costa, B; Matos, R; Amorim, I; Gärtner, F; Vale, NThe breast cancer therapies available are insufficient, especially since first-line treatments, such as paclitaxel, result in drug resistance and their toxicity often limits their concentration. Strategies like drug repurposing are beneficial, and novel treatments can emerge by repurposing drugs that interfere with the dopamine and serotonin receptors, and thus influence tumor growth. In this study, the MTT ass...
High drug resistance in feline mammary carcinoma cell line (FMCm) and compariso...
Correia, AS; Matos, R; Gärtner, F; Amorim, I; Vale, NDrug repurposing and drug combination are important therapeutic approaches in cancer therapy. Drug repurposing aims to give new indications to drugs, rather than the original indication, whereas drug combination presupposes that the effect that is obtained should be more beneficial than the effect obtained by the individual drugs. Previously, drug repurposing and the combination of different drugs was evaluated...
Drug combination and repurposing for cancer therapy: the example of breast cancer
Correia, AS; Gärtner, F; Vale, NCancer is a set of extremely complex diseases, which are increasingly prominent today, as it affects and kills millions of people worldwide, being the subject of intense study both in its pathophysiology and therapy. Especially in women, breast cancer is still a cancer with a high incidence and mortality. Even though mortality rates for this type of cancer have declined in recent years, it remains challenging a...
AMP-chitosan coating with bactericidal activity in the presence of human plasma...
Monteiro, C; Fernandes, H; Oliveira, D; Vale, N; Barbosa, M; Gomes, P; Martins, MCLAntibiotic resistance is increasing and new strategies are needed to fight infection. Advanced materials are promising tools that can be combined with innovative alternatives to conventional antibiotics to allow more targeted and efficient treatment. In this work, we explored the activity against Staphylococcus epidermidis (S. epidermidis) of the a-helical antimicrobial peptide (AMP) MSI-78(4-20) (KFLKKAKKFGKAF...
Activity of Combinations of Antioxidants and Anthelmintic Drugs against the Adu...
Gouveia, MJ; Brindley, PJ; Gärtner, F; Vale, NSchistosomiasis remains a major neglected tropical disease. The treatment and control of schistosomiasis rely on a single drug, praziquantel (PZQ). Despite its efficacy, treatment with PZQ presents some major drawbacks including an inability of the chemotherapy to reverse disease-induced fibrosis and the prospect of the emergence of drug resistance. Here, we investigated a novel therapeutic approach with antiox...
The antioxidants resveratrol and N-acetylcysteine enhance anthelmintic activity...
Gouveia, M; Brindley, P; Azevedo, C; Gärtner, F; Costa, JMC; Vale, NBackground: Treatment of schistosomiasis has relied on the anthelmintic drug praziquantel (PZQ) for more than a generation. Despite its celebrated performance for treatment and control of schistosomiasis and other platyhelminth infections, praziquantel has some shortcomings and the inability of this drug to counteract disease sequelae prompts the need for novel therapeutic strategies. Methods: Using a host-para...
Inhibition of the formation in vitro of putatively carcinogenic metabolites der...
Gouveia, MJ; Nogueira, V; Araújo, B; Gärtner, F; Vale, NInfections caused by Schistosoma haematobium and Opisthorchis viverrini are classified as carcinogenic. Although carcinogenesis might be a multifactorial process, it has been postulated that these helminth produce/excrete oxysterols and estrogen-like metabolites that might act as initiators of their infection-associated carcinogenesis. Current treatment and control of these infections rely on a single drug, pra...
Combination of gemcitabine with cell-penetrating peptides: A pharmacokinetic ap...
Ferreira, A; Lapa, R; Vale, NGemcitabine is an anticancer drug used to treat a wide range of solid tumors and is a first line treatment for pancreatic cancer. Our group has previously developed novel conjugates of gemcitabine with cell-penetrating peptides (CPP), and here we report some preliminary data regarding the pharmacokinetics of gemcitabine, two gemcitabine-CPP conjugates and respective CPP gathered from GastroPlus™, and analyze th...