Bücher der Reihe Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology

This book presents a comprehensive collection of current knowledge and leading research about the blood-brain barrier. The chapters are organized in four main parts providing basic information and novel insights about the physiology of the blood-brain barrier, the challenges related to finding and developing drugs crossing the blood-brain barrier, experimental methods to study the blood-brain barrier and the role of the blood-brain barrier in disease mechanisms and its consequences for drug development. In the first part the readers will discover the structure, function and developmental aspects of the blood-brain barrier and gain novel insights into the complexity and functionality of the neurovascular unit and energy metabolism of brain endothelial cells. Chapters of the second part focus on translational challenges from the bench to the bedside in CNS drug development, shed light on the importance to understand the brain distribution of drugs related to their efficacy, elaborate on general pharmacokinetic considerations for CNS drugs and introduce current and novel drug delivery strategies to overcome the blood-brain barrier. The experimental part of the book covers mathematical and in vitro models as well as animal and human methods in blood-brain barrier research. Specific emphasis is set on the description of the methods, the role of species differences for data interpretation, novel human models based on stem cells with the potential for personalized medicine and technical considerations and tips helpful for readers interested in working with these models. In the fourth part particular attentions is given to the blood-brain barrier, its changes and participation during disease progression. Chapters summarize alterations of the blood-brain barrier that are present in common disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, stroke, traumatic brain injury, epilepsy and brain tumors. Present therapies will be discussed and the consequences for novel treatment approaches that need to bypass the blood-brain-barrier will be explored. In addition, experts discuss the question in how far changes at the blood-brain barrier are causally linked to disease progressions and consequently could serve as therapeutic targets. This collection is designed to appeal to a wide readership from students through basic and applied scientist to pharmacologists, medical doctors and stakeholders from the pharmaceutical industry and regulatory affairs. Due its comprehensive content the book has the potential to become a standard work in the field of blood-brain barrier research.

Obesity is a major risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes and its associated complications, a major socio-economic burden for health care systems. The worldwide prevalence of obesity doubled since 1980 and as a consequence the number of patients with diabetes has been continuously rising with more than 450 Mio. people suffering from this disease at the present time. Substantial progress has been made in understanding the molecular pathways leading from excessive fat accumulation to metabolic perturbation and finally diabetes manifestation. This edition of the "e;Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology"e; aims to analyze new insight into the pathophysiology of obesity, to decipher the complex links to diabetes and its complications, and to collect most recent information on new strategies for prevention and treatment of obesity and diabetes.

The goal of this book is to provide a guide and detailed review of immunosuppression in terms of molecular mechanisms of action, side effects and clinical trials that validated their utility. This includes their use in solid organ transplantation, bone marrow transplantation and autoimmune diseases and inflammatory diseases. This book is a critical review of these topics and a vital resource.

The current book is focussed on the Toll-like receptors (TLRs), which are the first pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) discovered in humans. For example, TLR4 was first recognized in humans in 1997 as a PRR recognizing the Gram-negative bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS). This discovery revolutionized the field of innate immunity and filled the long-standing gap in the pathogen recognition by the immune system. Now, it is well established that humans have 10 (TLR1-TLR10) and mice have 12 (TLR1-TLR13) functional TLRs, excluding TLR10 that is present as a defective pseudogene. TLRs are present as both membrane-bound extracellular (TLR1, TLR2, TLR4, TLR5, TLR6, and TLR10) and intracellular (TLR3, TLR7, TLR8, and TLR9) PRRs in humans, which identify different pathogen or microbe-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs or MAMPs) and death or damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) released by the host cells. A lot of development in the TLR biology has occurred in last 24 years since there first discovery in humans.The book is intended to describe their role in the host defence, human reproduction, non-infectious sterile inflammatory conditions, including brain immunity and cerebrovascular diseases, signaling mechanisms, adaptive immunity, and their targeting for drug development.

This volume of the Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2019, addresses the rapidly growing and evolving field of metabolomics. It has been compiled and designed to broaden and enrich your understanding as well as simplify a complicated picture of the diverse field of metabolomics. This is accomplished by chapters from experts in the field on basic principles as well as reviews and updates of analytical techniques. The variety and different perspectives of the NMR approaches are described in the chapters By David Wishart, Daniel Raftery and Ryan McKay, while mass spectrometry advances are covered by Charles R. Evans and Stefan Kempa. This book also reflects the state of the art in the application of metabolomics to cell biology (Marta Cascante and Ulrich Guenther) and chapters that share insights into the application of metabolomics in various diseases (Paola Turano and Claudio Luchinat, Rachel S. Kelly and Jessica Lasky-Su,Paige Lacy, and Angela Rogers. Relationships of metabolomics with drugs are highlighted by Robert Verpoorte (natural products drug discovery), by Oscar Millet and by Turano and Luchinat (perspectives in precision medicine) and by Daniel L. Hertz (drug-induced peripheral neuropathy). From the above list of diverse topics, we believe this book has interdisciplinary appeal and scholars with an interest in the role of metabolomics in achieving precision medicine will find it of particular or special interest.

This book covers the molecular structures and the cellular and in vivo function of endosomes and lysosomes, i.e. intracellular vesicles which are involved in many cellular processes such as endocytosis, intracellular trafficking, degradation of material from inside (e.g. autophagy) and outside the cell as well as exocytosis. Membranes of endolysosomal organelles contain an amazing number and diversity of ion channels. These ion channels are the topic of the present book that focusses on describing the structure, the biophysical properties, physiological functions of endolysosomal ion channels at the molecular, cellular and in vivo level.

Biological sex and gender have a tremendous impact on the efficacy and safety of pharmacological interventions in virtually every disease state. This book presents a comprehensive and up-to-date overview on how sex-specific information is guiding the diagnosis and treatment of diseases affecting men and women, as well as of disease states that disproportionally affects women. Experts in various fields discuss both preclinical and clinical research that is contributing to a better understanding of the impact of sex in the presentation, etiology, treatment, and disease outcomes. Also discussed are the challenges encountered in implementing this growing body of knowledge into practice, as well as possible avenues to recognize and reduce health disparities between men and women so that therapeutic interventions are tailored and improved.

This book provides an overview on recent progress in anion channels and transporters. It covers multiple scales of analysis ranging from studying the molecular basis of function at atomic resolution to cellular consequences to channel/transporter dysfunction and approaches to correct such processes by pharmacological intervention. Similar anion channels and transporters are expressed in multiple tissues ¿ often fulfilling similar cellular tasks, but also clearly distinct functions. The aim is to combine work on multiple cell and organ systems.