Santos, T.B.; de Moraes, L.G.C.; Pacheco, P.A.F.; dos Santos, D.G.; Ribeiro, R.M.A.C.; Moreira, C.S.; da Rocha, D.R. Naphthoquinones as a Promising Class of Compounds for Facing the Challenge of Parkinson’s Disease. Pharmaceuticals2023, 16, 1577.
Santos, T.B.; de Moraes, L.G.C.; Pacheco, P.A.F.; dos Santos, D.G.; Ribeiro, R.M.A.C.; Moreira, C.S.; da Rocha, D.R. Naphthoquinones as a Promising Class of Compounds for Facing the Challenge of Parkinson’s Disease. Pharmaceuticals 2023, 16, 1577.
Santos, T.B.; de Moraes, L.G.C.; Pacheco, P.A.F.; dos Santos, D.G.; Ribeiro, R.M.A.C.; Moreira, C.S.; da Rocha, D.R. Naphthoquinones as a Promising Class of Compounds for Facing the Challenge of Parkinson’s Disease. Pharmaceuticals2023, 16, 1577.
Santos, T.B.; de Moraes, L.G.C.; Pacheco, P.A.F.; dos Santos, D.G.; Ribeiro, R.M.A.C.; Moreira, C.S.; da Rocha, D.R. Naphthoquinones as a Promising Class of Compounds for Facing the Challenge of Parkinson’s Disease. Pharmaceuticals 2023, 16, 1577.
Abstract
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a degenerative disease that affects approximately 6.1 million and is primarily caused by the loss of dopaminergic neurons. Naphthoquinones have several biological activities explored in the literature, including neuroprotective effects. Therefore, this review shows an overview of natural and synthetic naphthoquinones with neuroprotective effects and with potential for the development of molecules for the treatment of PD. Many examples of natural naphthoquinones, such as shikonin, plumbagin and vitamin K, exerted a neuroprotective effect by preventing oxidative stress, in addition to multiple mechanisms. Synthetic naphthoquinones with inhibitory activity on the P2X7 receptor were also found, leading to a neuroprotective effect on Neuro-2a cells. It was found that naphthazarin can act as inhibitors of the MAO-B enzyme. Vitamin K and synthetic naphthoquinones hybrids with tryptophan or dopamine showed inhibition of the aggregation of α-synuclein. A library of synthetic derivatives of juglone and naphthazarin were able to protect Neuro-2a cells against neurodegenerative effects of neurotoxins. We report many examples of naphthoquinones that act in therapeutic pathways for the treatment of PD. In addition, routes for producing synthetic derivatives were also discussed. With the data presented, 1,4-naphthoquinones can be considered a promising class in the treatment of PD.
Keywords
naphtoquinones; Parkinson disease; P2X7 receptor
Subject
Chemistry and Materials Science, Organic Chemistry
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
