Computer Aided Drug Design and its Application to the Development of Potential Drugs for Neurodegenerative Disorders

BACKGROUND: Neurodegenerative disorders (NDs) are diverse group of disorders characterized by escalating loss of neurons (structural and functional). The development of potential therapeutics for NDs presents an important challenge, as traditional treatments are inefficient and usually are unable to stop or retard the process of neurodegeneration. Computer-Aided Drug Design (CADD) has emerged as an efficient means of developing candidate drugs for the treatment of many disease types. Applications of CADD approach to drug discovery are progressing day by day. The recent tendency in drug design is to rationally design potent therapeutics with multi-targeting effects, higher efficacies, and fewer side effects, especially in terms of toxicity. METHODS: A wide literature search was performed for writing this review. An updated view on different types of NDs, their effect on human population and a brief introduction to CADD, various approaches involved in this technique, ranging from structural-based to ligand-based drug design has been discussed. The successful application of CADD approaches for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders is also included in this review. RESULTS: In this review, we have briefly described about CADD and its use in the development of the therapeutic drug candidates against NDs. The successful applications, limitations and future prospects of this approach have also been discussed. CONCLUSION: CADD can assist researchers studying interactions between drugs and receptors. We believe this review will be helpful for better understanding of CADD and its applications towards the discovery of new drug candidates against various fatal NDs.