Background: Thiazole is a good pharmacophore nucleus due to its various pharmaceutical applications. Its derivatives have a wide range of biological activities such as antioxidant, analgesic, and antimicrobial including antibacterial, antifungal, antimalarial, anticancer, antiallergic, antihypertensive, anti-inflammatory, and antipsychotic. Indeed, the thiazole scaffold is contained in more than 18 FDA-approved drugs as well as in numerous experimental drugs. Objective: To summarize recent literature on the biological activities of thiazole ring-containing compounds Methods: A literature survey regarding the topics from the year 2015 up to now was carried out. Older publications were not included, since they were previously analyzed in available peer reviews. Results: Nearly 124 research articles were found, critically analyzed, and arranged regarding the synthesis and biological activities of thiazoles derivatives in the last 5 years.

Oxidants play a significant role in the pathogenesis of a number of disorders such as inflammation, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, psoriasis and contact dermatitis leading to oxidative stress. Oxidative stress may be defined as an imbalance between cellular production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and antioxidant defense mechanisms. ROS (e.g., superoxide radical, peroxynitryl, hydroxyl radical and hydrogen peroxide) are constantly produced as a result of metabolic reactions in living systems. The aim of this review is to describe recent developments in the study of antioxidants and their role in preventing the formation of ROS. The processes associated with inflammatory responses are complex and often involve ROS. There are many mediators, which initiate and amplify the inflammatory response such as histamine, serotonin, pro-inflammatory cytokines (interleukin-1B (IL-1b) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α)), inflammatory cells (leukotrienes, macrophages), metabolic products of arachidonic acid (thomboxane A2, prostaglandins and leukotrienes). The first part of this review focuses on the role of ROS in inflammation. The second part concerns synthetic antioxidants with antiinflammatory activity, and the third part addresses naturally occurring antioxidants with antiinflammatory activity.

Inflammation is a natural process that is connected to various conditions and disorders such as arthritis, psoriasis, cancer, infections, asthma, etc. Based on the fact that cyclooxygenase isoenzymes (COX-1, COX-2) are responsible for the production of prostaglandins that play an important role in inflammation, traditional treatment approaches include administration of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), which act as selective or non-selective COX inhibitors. Almost all of them present a number of unwanted, often serious, side effects as a consequence of interference with the arachidonic acid cascade. In search for new drugs to avoid side effects, while maintaining high potency over inflammation, scientists turned their interest to the synthesis of dual COX/LOX inhibitors, which could provide numerous therapeutic advantages in terms of anti-inflammatory activity, improved gastric protection and safer cardiovascular profile compared to conventional NSAIDs. Τhiazole and thiazolidinone moieties can be found in numerous biologically active compounds of natural origin, as well as synthetic molecules that possess a wide range of pharmacological activities. This review focuses on the biological activity of several thiazole and thiazolidinone derivatives as COX-1/COX-2 and LOX inhibitors.