Designing Safer Analgesics Via μ-Opioid Receptor Pathways

Overview

Journal Trends Pharmacol Sci

Specialty Pharmacology

Date 2017 Sep 23

PMID 28935293

Citations 36

Authors

H C Stephen Chan

Dillon McCarthy

Jianing Li

Krzysztof Palczewski

Shuguang Yuan

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Pain is both a major clinical and economic problem, affecting more people than diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined. While a variety of prescribed or over-the-counter (OTC) medications are available for pain management, opioid medications, especially those acting on the μ-opioid receptor (μOR) and related pathways, have proven to be the most effective, despite some serious side effects including respiration depression, pruritus, dependence, and constipation. It is therefore imperative that both academia and industry develop novel μOR analgesics which retain their opioid analgesic properties but with fewer or no adverse effects. In this review we outline recent progress towards the discovery of safer opioid analgesics.

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