Repurposing Marketed Drugs as Antidepressants with In Silico, In Vivo, and In Vitro Screening Methods.

Drug repurposing is a strategy to identify new therapeutic uses for marketed drugs, discontinued or shelved drugs, and drug candidates in clinical development. Drug repurposing has gained momentum over the past few years. A slow rate of new drug discovery and higher cost of new drug development attracted the attention for repurposing and repositioning of old medications .

Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Substituted Thiophene Derivatives.

A novel series of pyrazolines were synthesized by cycloaddition of various chalcones (prepared by a Claisen-Schmidt condensation of 3-acetyl-2,5-dimethyl thiophene and various aromatic aldehydes) with the phenyl hydrazines in the presence of pyridine and subjected to molecular property prediction by Molinspiration, MolSoft, and Osiris software. The structures of new compounds were established by HNMR, IR, and mass spectral data. Most of the synthesized compounds (1A-E) were found to be in conformity with Lipinski's "rule of five" and other parameters, for their screening for antimicrobial and antifungal activity as oral active leads/drugs.

Phospholipid Fatty Acid Profile of Spirulina platensis.

Phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) analysis is used to measure the microbial biomass and the phospholipids present in the environmental samples. Microalgae spirulina is found to be a rich source of very-long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (VLCPUFAs) and has been used as a neutraceutical and regenerative medicine in the biotechnological industries as PUFAs are not synthesized in the human body due to the lack of enzymes for their bioconversion and must be supplied through the diet. Eicosapentanoic acid (EPA) and docosahexanoic acid (DHA) are the two most important long-chain omega-3 (ω-3) polyunsaturated fatty acids involved in the human physiology, and their precursors stearic acid (ω-9), linoleic acid (ω-6), and gamma linolenic acid (ω-6) were found to be in higher concentrations in Spirulina platensis.