Quinolines: a new hope against inflammation

Although a number of anti-inflammatory drugs have been discovered and developed to treat diseases associated with acute and chronic inflammation, many anti-inflammatories cause adverse side effects. The quinoline framework has emerged as a new template for the design and identification of novel anti-inflammatory agents. These agents are classified based on the number of substituents present on the quinoline ring or compounds containing a quinoline ring fused to other heterocycles. This review focuses on the discovery of various quinoline derivatives as inhibitors of cyclooxygenase (COX), phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4) and tumour necrosis factor-alpha converting enzyme (TACE), along with transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) antagonists.