Therapeutic drug monitoring of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs in circulating leukocytes in immune-mediated inflammatory diseases.

The treatment of immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) is one of the main challenges of modern medicine. Although a number of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) are available, there is wide variability in clinical response to treatment among individuals. Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) has been proposed to optimize treatment; however, some patients still experience unsatisfactory outcomes, although the blood concentrations of drugs in these patients remain in the therapeutic range.

Drug-containing serum of rhubarb-astragalus capsule inhibits the epithelial-mesenchymal transformation of HK-2 by downregulating TGF-β1/p38MAPK/Smad2/3 pathway.

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Rheum palmatum L; Astragalus membranaceus (Fisch.), is referred to as 'Dahuang, Huangqi' in China. As an important medicinal plant, the rhizome of rhubarb and astragalus is traditionally used in the treatment of kidney diseases associated with renal failure, inflammation and tumors.

New multifunctional melatonin-derived benzylpyridinium bromides with potent cholinergic, antioxidant, and neuroprotective properties as innovative drugs for Alzheimer's disease.

A novel series of melatonin-derived benzylpyridinium bromides have been designed, synthesized, and evaluated as multi-functional anti-AD agents with cholinesterase inhibitory, antioxidant, and neuroprotective activities. In vitro studies showed that most of these compounds exhibited potent inhibitory activity toward h-AChE and h-BuChE, and good antioxidant capacity in the ORAC assay. In particular, compound 19 was the most attractive derivative, showing the highest potency to inhibit ChEs (AChE: IC₅₀ = 0.