Chalcones (1,3-Diarylpropen-1-ones) and Their Analogues as Potential TherapeuticAgents of Diseases of the Cardiovascular System

Overview

At the beginning of a new millennium, several important questions have come to the fore connectedwith the utilization of natural resources for the investigation of new medicaments (necessity ofcooperation of both highly developed and developing countries in the protection of natural resources,necessity to justly evaluate and reward the contributions of the individual cultures in the case thata knowledge of traditional medicine was employed in the development of a new medicament,necessity to achieve the maximal chemical variety of real and virtual libraries of substances fromwhich potential drugs are selected for screening tests). The research of chalcones and its analogueswhich are relatively easily available not only by isolation from natural material, but also by themethods of classical and combinatorial synthesis should not be substantially affected by theabove-described changes. The present communication links up with previous papers (Opletalová,V.,Šedivý, D.: Čes. slov. Farm. 48, 252 (1999); Opletalová, V.: Čes. slov. Farm. 49, 278 (2000); Opletalová,V. et al.: Folia Pharm. Univ. Carol. 25, 21 (2000)) and is devoted to the stabilizing action of chalconeson the vascular wall, vasodilating and anti-aggregating effects, and a favourable effect of theirantioxidative activity on the functions of the cardiovascular system. The introduction also brieflydiscusses the nomenclature of this group of compounds.

Key words:
chalcones – 1,3-diarylpropen-1-ones – nomenclature – cardiovascular effects