The Fall and Rise of Pharmacology – (Re-)Defining the Discipline?
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Biochemical Pharmacology 87 (2014) 4–24 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Biochemical Pharmacology jo urnal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biochempharm Review – Part of the Special Issue – Pharmacology in 21st Century Biomedical Research The fall and rise of pharmacology – (Re-)defining the discipline? a b c, Raymond J. Winquist , Kevin Mullane , Michael Williams * a Department of Pharmacology, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cambridge, MA, United States b Profectus Pharma Consulting Inc., San Jose, CA, United States c Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Biological Chemistry, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Article history: Pharmacology is an integrative discipline that originated from activities, now nearly 7000 years old, to Received 7 September 2013 identify therapeutics from natural product sources. Research in the 19th Century that focused on the Law Accepted 9 September 2013 of Mass Action (LMA) demonstrated that compound effects were dose-/concentration-dependent Available online 23 September 2013 eventually leading to the receptor concept, now a century old, that remains the key to understanding disease causality and drug action. As pharmacology evolved in the 20th Century through successive Keywords: biochemical, molecular and genomic eras, the precision in understanding receptor function at the Pharmacology molecular level increased and while providing important insights, led to an overtly reductionistic Receptors emphasis. This resulted in the generation of data lacking physiological context that ignored the LMA and Drug discovery was not integrated at the tissue/whole organism level. As reductionism became a primary focus in Systems biology biomedical research, it led to the fall of pharmacology. However, concerns regarding the disconnect between basic research efforts and the approval of new drugs to treat 21st Century disease tsunamis, e.g., neurodegeneration, metabolic syndrome, etc. has led to the reemergence of pharmacology, its rise, often in the semantic guise of systems biology. Against a background of limited training in pharmacology, this has resulted in issues in experimental replication with a bioinformatics emphasis that often has a limited relationship to reality. The integration of newer technologies within a pharmacological context where research is driven by testable hypotheses rather than technology, together with renewed efforts in teaching pharmacology, is anticipated to improve the focus and relevance of biomedical research and lead to novel therapeutics that will contain health care costs. ß 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Introduction . 5 2. Pharmacology – its fall and rise . 5 2.1. In the beginning. 6 2.2. Pharmacology as a distinct discipline . 6 2.3. The receptor concept . 6 2.3.1. Receptors as drug targets . 6 2.4. Evolution of the receptor concept . 7 2.4.1. Occupancy theory . 8 2.4.2. The ternary complex model (TCM) . 8 2.4.3. Constitutive receptor activity . 8 2.4.4. Regulation of receptor function . 8 2.4.5. Receptor complexes and allosteric modulation . 10 3. The biochemical era in pharmacology . 10 3.1. Receptor isolation . 10 3.2. Receptor subtypes. 11 3.3. Receptor binding assays . 11 3.3.1. Neurotransmitter binding assays . 12 3.3.2. Autoradiographical techniques . 12 * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Williams). 0006-2952/$ – see front matter ß 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bcp.2013.09.011 R.J. Winquist et al. / Biochemical Pharmacology 87 (2014) 4–24 5 3.3.3. Drug mechanism(s) of action; drug receptors . 12 3.3.4. Compound screening . 13 3.4. Biochemical pharmacology – the first circle of reductionism. 13 4. The molecular phase of pharmacology . 13 4.1. Cloning . 13 4.2. Orphan receptors . 14 4.3. Mutagenesis . 14 4.4. Receptor crystallization . 14 4.5. Molecular pharmacology – cloning and expression – the second circle of reductionism . 14 4.5.1. Patenting novel drug targets and their use . 15 4.5.2. Reductionism in signaling pathways . 15 5. Genomic pharmacology . 15 5.1. Pharmacology post the human genome map . 16 5.2. Genomic pharmacology – genome-based targets – the third circle of reductionism . 17 6. The return to holistic, hierarchical pharmacology – reductionism redux . 17 7. Applied pharmacology and drug hunters . 18 7.1. The drug hunter – anachronism or enabler?. 18 8. Future considerations . 18 8.1. Imponderables, complication, unknowns and necessary context – it all depends. 18 8.2. Emerging trends . ..