Emerging targets and potential therapeutic agents in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease treatment

Eur J Med Chem. 2020 Jul 1:197:112311. doi: 10.1016/j.ejmech.2020.112311. Epub 2020 Apr 18.

Abstract

Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is the most common chronic liver disease in the world, which is characterized by liver fat accumulation unrelated to excessive drinking. Indeed, it attracts growing attention and becomes a global health problem. Due to the complexity of the NAFLD pathogenic mechanism, no related drugs were approved by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) till now. However, it is encouraging that a series of candidate drugs have entered the clinical trial stage with expectation to treat NAFLD. In this review, we summarized the main pathways and pathogenic mechanisms of NAFLD, as well as introduced the main potential therapeutic targets and the corresponding compounds involved in metabolism, inflammation and fibrosis. Furthermore, we also discuss the progress of these compounds, such as drug design and optimization, the choice of pharmacological properties and druglikeness, and the analysis of structure-activity relationship. This review offers a medium on future drug design and development, to be beneficial to relevant studies.

Keywords: Inflammation; Metabolism; NAFLD; Pathogenesis; Potential therapeutic agents; Promising therapeutic targets.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Drug Design
  • Drug Therapy / methods*
  • Humans
  • Molecular Structure
  • Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease / drug therapy*
  • Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease / etiology
  • Pharmaceutical Preparations / chemistry*
  • Structure-Activity Relationship

Substances

  • Pharmaceutical Preparations