Year: 2023
Type: editorial
Abstract: High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide Recent efforts to repurpose disulfiram, a drug used in alcohol-aversion therapy for decades, for other diseases suggest the molecule is almost an in vitro panacea: it seems to be effective against various cancers (by multiple mechanisms of action), Alzheimer’s disease, obesity and metabolic syndrome, pythiosis, lyme borreliosis, COVID-19, and sepsis. The problem is that the molecule almost does not exist in the body after ingestion and, most importantly, is not the pharmacologically active entity in alcoholic patients, being rather a prodrug. This prodrug is widely and misleadingly used in many in vitro and in vivo experiments regardless of its physiologically reachable concentration or its metabolism in vivo .
Source: ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters
Author: Boris Cvek
Institution: Palacký University Olomouc
Language: English
Subfield: Pharmacology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $5,000
OpenAlex ID: W4388465297