Pleiotropy (drugs)
In pharmacology, pleiotropy includes all of a drug's actions other than those for which the agent was specifically developed.[1] It may include adverse effects which are detrimental ones,[1] but is often used to denote additional beneficial effects.[2]
For example,
systemic ones, for the same reason that endogenous steroid hormones do: cells throughout the body have receptors that can respond to them, because the endogenous ones are endocrine
messengers.
Another example is melatonin, which has a wide range of effects on biological systems on multiple scales, from modulating the circadian rhythm and inducing sleep via the activation of melatoninergic receptors, to recepto-independent antioxydative and anti-inflammatory effects over all organs down to cells.[3][4]
See also
- Adverse effect
- Pleiotropy in genetics
References
- ^ PMID 15198965.
- ISBN 978-0-443-06911-6.
- ISSN 2194-9379.
- PMID 22894052.