111 papers
Pharmacology and toxicology explore how substances interact with living systems, ranging from the development of life-saving medicines to understanding the dangers of chemical exposure. This field sits at the critical intersection of chemistry and biology, asking essential questions about how drugs work, how the body processes them, and what happens when things go wrong. It is a dynamic area where researchers constantly strive to improve patient safety while discovering new therapeutic possibilities.
At Gist.Science, we bridge the gap between complex research and public understanding by curating the latest preprints from bioRxiv in this vital category. Our team processes every new submission from bioRxiv as it appears, transforming dense scientific data into both plain-language overviews and detailed technical summaries. This ensures that whether you are a specialist or a curious reader, you can grasp the significance of these emerging findings without getting lost in jargon.
Below are the most recent pharmacology and toxicology papers from bioRxiv, each accompanied by our expert analysis to help you navigate the latest scientific breakthroughs.
This study reports that LIT-01-144, a metabolically stable spexin analogue that selectively activates GALR2, induces potent non-opioid peripheral antinociception in persistent inflammatory pain without crossing the blood-brain barrier, highlighting GALR2 as a promising target for novel analgesic therapies.
This study demonstrates that a dimer peptide ligand of VEGF (D6) effectively inhibits human gastric tumor growth in mouse xenografts with efficacy comparable to the antibody bevacizumab, supporting further optimization of this smaller therapeutic candidate.
The study demonstrates that the novel Drp1 inhibitor DRP1i2 effectively protects against doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity by preserving cardiac structure and function in both murine and human models, while maintaining or even enhancing anticancer efficacy across various cancer cell lines.
This study demonstrates that combining strontium with intermittent PTH1-34 in ovariectomized rats produces a synergistic effect, significantly enhancing trabecular and cortical bone mass, material properties, and strength beyond the benefits of either treatment alone.
By combining time-resolved transcriptomics and metabolomics in *Drosophila melanogaster*, this study demonstrates that arsenic exposure triggers conserved molecular responses—ranging from detoxification pathways to diabetic-like metabolic shifts—that mirror human disease signatures, establishing the fruit fly as a robust model for studying arsenic-induced pathology.
This study reveals that disulfiram protects against diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance through a GSDMD-independent mechanism involving the context-dependent reprogramming of systemic lipid partitioning, rather than via the previously hypothesized suppression of inflammasome signaling.
This study of the Glowing birth cohort reveals that transplacental transfer efficiency of PFAS increases linearly across pregnancy, with early-to-mid gestation maternal levels serving as the strongest predictors for placental and cord concentrations, while highlighting distinct trimester-specific patterns and the critical role of placental PFOS and PFOA in determining fetal exposure.
This study demonstrates that model ensembling and machine learning approaches significantly outperform standard dosing and single-model methods in predicting the optimal first dose of amoxicillin for intensive care patients, thereby enhancing target attainment without requiring initial concentration measurements.
Asarinin inhibits RANKL-induced osteoclast differentiation and actin ring formation by selectively targeting the p38/ERK-c-Fos-NFATc1 signaling axis, suggesting its potential as a therapeutic agent for pathological bone loss.
This study demonstrates that the muscarinic antagonist KH-5 functions as a dualsteric ligand with mixed orthosteric and allosteric mechanisms at M1 receptors, while acting primarily as a competitive antagonist at M2 receptors, offering a new framework for developing subtype-selective anticholinergic drugs.