Mona Piplani

Insight View on Possible Role of Fluoroquinolones in Cancer Therapy

Cancer is a disease without limits turning out to be prime cause for raising death toll around the world. Several treatment strategies including chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy are being employed worldwide to combat this disease. Due to the unwanted effects of currently available therapies, scientific community is immensely interested in exploring newer alternative pathways. Fluoroquinolones have been employed as potent anti-microbial agents for last few decades and now being looked up as potential therapeutic agents in the other ailments also. Several research endeavours are carried out in different parts of the world to focus on the prospective role of fluoroquinolones in carcinogenesis and mutagenesis. This article is an earnest attempt to present recent research work carried out on fluoroquinolones in the context to cancer treatment therapies.

Synthesis and characterization of N-Mannich based prodrugs of ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin: In vitro anthelmintic and cytotoxic evaluation

Graphical abstract

Insight into Prodrugs of Quinolones and Fluoroquinolones

Quinolones and fluoroquinolones are principal weapons against variety of bacterial infections and exert their antibacterial potential by interfering the activities of bacterial enzymes. As these agents are associated with some limitations, an important approach to overcome these major constraints is to prepare covalent derivatives, i.e. prodrugs. Prodrug design has been employed to improve the limitations of these drugs such as less aqueous solubility, poor absorption and distribution, toxicity, disagreeable taste, poor lipophilicity etc and for improving their pharmacological profile. This paper highlights the utility of various prodrug strategies in optimizing the therapeutic index of these antibacterial agents and their recent patents. Some of their prodrugs being utilized at preclinical and clinical levels have also been discussed. Hence, this paper has been prepared to present the significant findings of various research papers that would be helpful in motivating scientific researchers to forward the research in direction of utilization of prodrugs in clinical therapy.

Synthesis, Characterization and Antimicrobial Evaluation of Lipid Based Norfloxacin Prodrug

BACKGROUND Fluoroquinolones, the synthetic antibacterial agents are being successfully utilized against bacterial infections, since the time immemorial. Despite of enormous useful features, these drugs are associated with some limitations also. Large number of efforts has been made by various scientists to improve pharmacokinetic properties of these drugs and hence, to overcome the limitations associated with them. OBJECTIVES The aim of this paper is to introduce a novel scheme for synthesis of prodrug with improved pharmacokinetic properties i.e., lipophilicity and consequently, modified bioavailability of norfloxacin. METHODS Fatty acid hydrazide of selected fatty acid was synthesized followed by preparation of 5-formyl salicylamide. N-Mannich base of norfloxacin was synthesized by reacting norfloxacin with 5-formyl salicylamide. The prodrug was obtained by covalently coupling this N-Mannich base of norfloxacin with fatty acid hydrazide. The synthesized lipid based prodrug was evaluated for partition coefficient by shake flask method and screened for antimicrobial activity against selected strains. Drug content determination and in vitro dissolution studies utilizing HPLC were also carried out. RESULTS The synthesized prodrug was found to exhibit improved partition coefficient (1.15) when compared with parent drug, norfloxacin (0.46). The results of antimicrobial evaluation indicate promising antibacterial and antifungal activity. CONCLUSION The synthesized prodrug proved to be a good antimicrobial substance due to improved lipophilicity and would be expected to be used as a suitable candidate for exploration of possible utilities in treatment of bacterial infections in forthcoming time.