Natural and synthetic bioactive inhibitors of glycogen synthase kinase

Glycogen synthase kinase-3 is a multi-functional serine-threonine kinase and is involved in diverse physiological processes, including metabolism, cell cycle, and gene expression by regulating a wide variety of known substrates like glycogen synthase, tau-protein and beta-catenin. Aberrant GSK-3 has been involved in diabetes, inflammation, cancer, Alzheimer's and bipolar disorder. In this review, we present an overview of the involvement of GSK-3 in various signalling pathways, resulting in a number of adverse pathologies due to its dysregulation. In addition, a detailed description of the small molecule inhibitors of GSK-3 with different mode of action discovered or specifically developed for GSK-3 has been presented. Furthermore, some clues for the future optimization of these promising molecules to develop specific drugs inhibiting GSK-3, for the treatment of associated disease conditions have also been discussed. (C) 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.