Molecular modeling and QSAR-based design of histamine receptor ligands

Abstract

Background: The histamine receptors have therapeutic relevance in treatment of several diseases with the more recently discovered H₃ and H₄ receptors offering opportunity as new therapeutic drug targets. Thus, it is of interest to develop new, potent and therapeutically relevant drugs with no side effects. Molecular modeling techniques may play an important role in quickly designing new ligands with a likelihood of exhibiting the corresponding pharmacological profile. Objective: The article describes the findings obtained from this approach for all of the histamine receptors with special emphasis on the H₃ and H₄ receptors. Conclusion: There have been several new studies in the past years aimed at developing new histamine receptor ligands on the one hand and at explaining pharmacological profiles on molecular level on the other. For these purposes, not only molecular modeling techniques, but also synthesis, pharmacological characterization, molecular biological and physical techniques are useful. This combination of several different theoretical and experimental techniques allows getting a more detailed insight into the interaction of histamine receptor ligands with histamine receptors and developing new drugs.

Keywords::

• histamine receptors
• molecular modeling
• structure–activity relationship

Acknowledgements

The author thanks H-J Wittmann for his excellent support, S Elz for his financial support and the reviewers for their constructive criticism.

Notes