Recently there has been a resurging interest in developing multi-functional drugs to treat diseases with complex pathological mechanisms. Such drug molecules simultaneously target multiple etiologies that have been found to be important modulators in specific diseases. This approach has significant promise and may be more effective than using one compound specific for one drug target or, by a polypharmaceutical approach, using a cocktail of two or more drugs. Polycyclic ring structures are useful as starting scaffolds in medicinal chemistry programs to develop multi-functional drugs, and may also be useful moieties added to existing structures to improve the pharmacokinetic properties of drugs currently used in the clinic or under development. This review attempts to provide a synopsis of current published research to exemplify the use of polycyclic compounds as starting molecules to develop multi-functional drugs.

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多环化合物：设计多机制药物的理想药物支架？

最近，人们对开发多功能药物来治疗具有复杂病理机制的疾病的兴趣重新燃起。这些药物分子同时针对多种病因，这些病因已被发现是特定疾病中的重要调节剂。这种方法有很大的希望，并且可能比使用一种特定于一个药物靶点的化合物或通过多种药物方法使用两种或多种药物的混合物更有效。多环结构可用作药物化学程序中开发多功能药物的起始支架，也可能是添加到现有结构中的有用部分，以改善目前用于临床或正在开发的药物的药代动力学特性。