Dear Colleagues,

Protein kinases are high-affinity cell receptors for several key polypeptide growth factors, cytokines, and hormones. Protein kinases usually have a common kinase catalytic domain, which plays a major role in their cellular functions, including cell shape, survival, and others. Protein kinases may also be associated with additional non-kinase domains, which confer additional selectivity, biological activity, subcellular localization, and binding with other proteins. There are several hundred genes encoding members of the kinase family in the human genome.

Several kinases share similar molecular architectures. Growth factors binding to the kinases induce possible dimerization, activation of their kinase domains through auto-phosphorylation, and generation of binding sites for a series of cytosolic proteins, containing polypeptide segments recruited to activated receptors. These proteins subsequently generate a cascade of events leading to various critical normal and/or pathological cellular responses, such as cell proliferation, migration, differentiation, survival, neovascularization, and tissue repair. Therefore, dysregulated or constitutively activated protein kinases are excellent molecular targets for different targeted therapies in numerous oncological, neurological, and other important human diseases.  

About 50% of today’s pharmaceuticals are natural products or analogs modeled based on or inspired by a natural product parent. Marine natural products have unmatched chemical and biological diversities, unique pharmacophoric features, and chemical space. This Special Issue, entitled “New Frontiers in Marine-Derived Kinase Modulators”, is calling for scientific innovations utilizing marine natural products to modulate protein kinases for different therapeutic directions. Marine Drugs hopes that this Special Issue will attract the attention of the scientific community for the important and unique role of marine natural products as potential future drug entity candidates through selective and differential modulation of diverse protein kinases by marine natural products.

Prof. Dr. Khalid A. El Sayed
Guest Editor

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• binding
• biochemical effects
• cellular
• dysregulations
• enhancers
• inhibitors
• kinases
• marine natural products
• modulator
• mutation
• neurological
• pharmacophore