Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Review Article | OPEN ACCESS

Molecular scaffold and biological activities of anti-Alzheimer agents

Fars K Alanazi¹, Awwad A Radwan^1,2 , Hisham Aou-Auda¹

¹Kayyali Chair for Pharmaceutical Industries, Department of Pharmaceutics, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2457, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia; ²Department of Pharmaceutical Organic Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Assiut University, Assiut-71527, Egypt.

For correspondence:- Awwad Radwan Email: aradwan@ksu.edu.sa Tel:+966114677205

Accepted: 4 February 2022 Published: 28 February 2021

Citation: Alanazi FK, Radwan AA, Aou-Auda H. Molecular scaffold and biological activities of anti-Alzheimer agents. Trop J Pharm Res 2022; 21(2):439-451 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v21i2.30

© 2022 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an age-associated and neurodegenerative illness which results in progressive dementia and severe cognitive malfunctions. The pathogenesis of AD is affected by some factors such as accumulation of β-amyloid, aggregation of tau protein, cholinergic insufficiency, neuro-inflammation, oxidative stress and apoptosis. Factors such as gene mutation, as well as environmental, psychical and other co-existing diseases influence the pathogenesis of AD to varying extents. While there are no available drugs for arresting AD-associated neurodegeneration, the characteristics that result from AD treatment are considered as indexes of symptomatic cure. Several medications with varied scaffolds have been used for the treatment of many cognitive syndromes, including AD. These medications act as anti-inflammatory and antioxidant agents, and as inhibitors of cholinesterase and β-secretase. Moreover, these drugs suppress the accumulation of β-amyloid and its fibril. This review is an update and compilation of various scaffolds of anti-AD medications used to ameliorate the deleterious effects of the disease, based on their pharmacologic characteristics.

Keywords: Alzheimer disease, Dementia, Beta-amyloid plaques, Protein tau tangles, Neuro-degeneration, Anti-AD medication