About this Research Topic

Background

The Discovery and development of new drugs have significantly improved human health. However, most drugs have more or less undesirable disadvantages or limitations, such as poor selectivity, chemical instability, weak water solubility, inadequate oral absorption, rapid metabolism, short half-life, and unwanted side effects. Many potential pharmaceuticals have been discontinued due to their poor pharmacokinetics and/or physicochemical properties. Prodrugs are chemically modified versions of biologically active agents that are inherently indolent but capable of being transformed into their active counterparts upon endogenous (e.g., reactive oxygen species (ROS), pH, GSH, enzyme, etc.) or external stimulus (e.g., light, thermal, ultrasound, magnetism, etc.). Therefore, prodrug-based optimization strategies are able to improve the physicochemical, biopharmaceutical, targeting and pharmacokinetic properties of pharmacologically potent molecules and thus enhance the usefulness, selectivity, safety and efficiency of a potential drug.

This Research Topic aims to highlight the latest advances and the newly emerging technologies in prodrug design, as well as the therapeutic advantages that could be obtained from the use of prodrug strategies in the treatment of human diseases, including cancer, inflammation, obesity, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases and infectious diseases. We encourage those researchers from the field of pharmacology, chemistry, biology, medicinal chemistry, material science and nanotechnology interested in this topic to contribute research articles or review articles concerning prodrug design and their therapeutic applications.

This Research Topic welcomes both original research articles and review articles. Potential subtopics include, but are not limited to:
• Design of prodrug
• Analysis of the mechanism of action (MOA) of the stimuli-responsive prodrug
• The selectivity, specificity, bioavailability and effectiveness of the designed prodrugs both in vitro and in vivo
• The results of biomedical and therapeutic applications carried out to evaluate prodrugs' efficiency in treating various human diseases

Please note, Clinical studies will not be considered for this Research Topic. Manuscripts with in silico only data will not be processed. Frontiers in Experimental Pharmacology and Drug Discovery does not accept for publication studies carried out with crude extracts or mixtures. Only the use of highly purified, chemically characterized compounds is acceptable.
This applies also to in silico studies on supposed mechanisms underlying supposed actions of crude extracts and/or mixtures.
Whenever a complex mixture is used, data with the single components of the mixture, in precisely defined dose/concentration, should be provided (and/or previously published). Studies including traditional Chinese medicine remedies can be considered only if carried out with pure individual compounds.

Keywords: Prodrug, molecular design, biological activity, stimuli-responsive, microenvironment, targeting, selectivity, bioavailability, therapeutic application

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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