Bile Acid Derivatives: From Old Molecules to a New Potent Therapeutic Use: An Overview

Bile acids or bile salts, belong to a large family of biological steroid derivatives found predominantly in the bile of mammals and other vertebrates. These amphipathic molecules possess numerous functions, including eliminating cholesterol from the body, driving the flow of bile to eliminate catabolites, emulsifying fat-soluble vitamins to enable their absorption, aiding in motility and in reducing the bacteria flora found in the small intestine and biliary tract. In this review, we investigate progress towards synthetic bile acid derivatives, with special emphasis on how they might be used for various biological applications and the challenges that remain in developing these compounds as potent drugs of the future especially in the field of microbiology (antimicrobial activities) and cancer (anticancer agents). We will emphasize the fact that even few researches are devoted around these peculiar structures. All the researches pointed out the important potential of such derivatives for the design of new classes of drugs.