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When two drugs affect each other, it is a drug–drug interaction (DDI). The risk of a DDI increases with the number of drugs used. [1] A large share of elderly people regularly use five or more medications or supplements, with a significant risk of side-effects from drug–drug interactions. [2] Drug interactions can be of three kinds:
Agonist vs. antagonist. In pharmacology the term agonist-antagonist or mixed agonist/antagonist is used to refer to a drug which under some conditions behaves as an agonist (a substance that fully activates the receptor that it binds to) while under other conditions, behaves as an antagonist (a substance that binds to a receptor but does not activate and can block the activity of other agonists).
The specificity of drugs cannot be talked about without mentioning the affinity of the drugs. The affinity is a measure of how tightly a drug binds to the receptor. If the drug does not bind well, then the action of the drug will be shorter and the chance of binding will also be less.
These pharmacophore points may be located on the ligand itself or may be projected points presumed to be located in the receptor. The features need to match different chemical groups with similar properties, in order to identify novel ligands. Ligand-receptor interactions are typically "polar positive", "polar negative" or "hydrophobic".
The topology of a biochemical reaction network determines the shape of drug dose-response curve [42] as well as the type of drug-drug interactions, [43] thus can help designing efficient and safe therapeutic strategies. The topology Network pharmacology utilizes computational tools and network analysis algorithms to identify drug targets ...
Topics of pharmacodynamics. Pharmacodynamics (PD) is the study of the biochemical and physiologic effects of drugs (especially pharmaceutical drugs).The effects can include those manifested within animals (including humans), microorganisms, or combinations of organisms (for example, infection).
Intrinsic activity (IA) and efficacy (E max) refer to the relative ability of a drug-receptor complex to produce a maximum functional response. This must be distinguished from the affinity, which is a measure of the ability of the drug to bind to its molecular target, and the EC 50, which is a measure of the potency of the drug and which is proportional to both efficacy and affinity.
In a ligand-receptor interaction, the ligand binds with the receptors to form a drug-receptor complex, producing a biological response. [3] [4] The biological nature of receptors can be enzymes, nucleic acids or cellular proteins. Common types of receptors include G-protein coupled receptors, nuclear receptors and ion channels. [4]