A Look at the Importance of Chirality in Drug Activity: Some Significative Examples
Source abstract
Abstract
Chirality plays an important role in the development of many pharmaceuticals, being a general property of ‘handedness’; nevertheless, a large number of pharmaceuticals are still marketed and administered as racemates. Chirality is all around and even within us; indeed, receptors and enzymes are chiral entities and interact in a specific manner with chiral drugs. Consequently, controlling enantiomeric purity and isolating the enantiomers from chiral drugs remains a crucial subject for analytical, clinical, and regulatory purposes, thus, improving the drug safety profile. The classical examples of spontaneous enantiomerization and severe toxicity related to chirality are represented by ibuprofen and thalidomide, respectively, but numerous other cases have been reported in the literature. This review intends to offer a brief overview on the most common chiral drugs used in therapy for the treatment of various diseases.
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Research context
OpenAlex topics: Analytical Chemistry and Chromatography · Pharmacogenetics and Drug Metabolism · Molecular spectroscopy and chirality
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
Affiliations
Department of Pharmacy, Health and Nutritional Sciences, University of Calabria, 87036 Arcavacata di Rende, Italy
Department of Pharmacy-Drug Sciences, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, 70126 Bari, Italy
Department of Science, University of Basilicata, 85100 Potenza, Italy
Departamento de Química, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Unidad Mixta de Investigación UPV- IIS La Fe, Hospital Universitari i Politècnic La Fe, Avenida de Fernando Abril Martorell 106, 46026 Valencia, Spain
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