[Progress in the study of small molecule inhibitors of HSP90].

HSP90, which is the biomarker of cell stress and endogenous protective protein, functions as a molecular chaperone. Many client proteins of HSP90, including EGFR, Met, Raf-1, IKK and p53, play important roles in the occurrence and development of tumor. Binding of HSP90 inhibitors triggers the deactivation of HSP90, resulting in client protein degradation, and hence inhibits the tumor growth by blocking multiple targets involved in signaling of tumor proliferation.

ScafBank: a public comprehensive Scaffold database to support molecular hopping.

Aim: The search for molecules whose bioactivities are similar to those of given compounds or to optimize the initial lead compounds from high throughput screening has attracted increasing interest in recent years. Our goal is to provide a publically searchable database of scaffolds out from a large collection of existing chemical molecules.

Results: Although a number of in silico methods have emerged to facilitate this process, which has become known as "scaffold hopping" or "molecular hopping", there is an urgent need for a database system to provide such valuable data in the drug design field.