Current medicinal chemistry
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Fetal growth is a complex process depending on the genetics of the fetus, the availability of nutrients to the fetus, maternal nutrition and various growth factors and hormones of maternal, fetal and placental origin. The IGF system, and more particularly IGF2, is one of the most important endocrine and paracrine growth systems regulating fetal and placental growth (reviewed in [1]). ⋯ Dysregulation of a cluster of imprinted genes, including the IGF2 gene within the 11p15 region, results in two fetal growth disorders (Silver-Russell and Beckwith-Wiedemann syndromes) with opposite growth phenotypes. Those two syndromes are model imprinting disorders to decipher the regulation of genomic imprinting.
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Traditional nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, tNSAIDs, are effective medication for prevention of ischemic events and treatment of pain, fever and inflammation. However their use associates with a significant risk to develop gastrointestinal and cardiovascular complications. Low doses of acetyl salicylic acid (ASA) and effective doses of tNSAIDs associate with a 2-6 fold increase in the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding. ⋯ Either naproxen and diclofenac hybrids have been reported to cause less gastrointestinal injury than parent NSAIDs. These novel chemical entities exert a variety of beneficial effects in rodent models of cardiovascular and metabolic disorders through a mechanism that might involve the release of H₂S and/or by exerting anti-oxidant effects. The beneficial role these mechanisms in clinical settings await a proof-of-concept study.