Novel cis-selective and non-epimerisable C3 hydroxy azapodophyllotoxins targeting microtubules in cancer cells

Podophyllotoxin (PT) and its clinically used analogues are known to be powerful antitumour agents. These compounds contain a trans fused strained γ-lactone system, a feature that correlates to the process of epimerisation, whereby the trans γ-lactone system of ring D opens and converts to the more t...

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Main Authors: Kandil, Sahar, Wymant, Jennifer M., Kariuki, Benson M., Jones, Arwyn T., McGuigan, Christopher, Westwell, Andrew D.
Format: Online
Language:English
Published: Editions Scientifiques Elsevier 2016
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4762250/
id pubmed-4762250
recordtype oai_dc
spelling pubmed-47622502016-03-07 Novel cis-selective and non-epimerisable C3 hydroxy azapodophyllotoxins targeting microtubules in cancer cells Kandil, Sahar Wymant, Jennifer M. Kariuki, Benson M. Jones, Arwyn T. McGuigan, Christopher Westwell, Andrew D. Research Paper Podophyllotoxin (PT) and its clinically used analogues are known to be powerful antitumour agents. These compounds contain a trans fused strained γ-lactone system, a feature that correlates to the process of epimerisation, whereby the trans γ-lactone system of ring D opens and converts to the more thermodynamically stable cis epimer. Since these cis epimers are known to be either less active or lacking antitumour activity, epimerisation is an undesirable feature from a chemotherapeutic point of view. To circumvent this problem, considerable efforts have been reported, amongst which is the synthesis of azapodophyllotoxins where the stereocentres at C2 and C3 are removed in order to preclude epimerisation. Herein we report the identification of a novel C3 hydroxy, cis-selective γ-lactone configuration of ring C in the azapodophyllotoxin scaffold, through an efficient stereoselective multicomponent reaction (MCR) involving fluorinated and non-fluorinated aldehydes. This configuration releases the highly strained trans γ-lactone system in podophyllotoxin analogues into the more thermodynamically stable cis γ-lactone motif and yet retains significantly potent activity. These compounds were evaluated against the human cancer lines MCF-7 and 22Rv1 in vitro. Fourteen out of the seventeen tested compounds exhibited sub-micromolar activity with IC50 values in the range of 0.11–0.91 μM, which is comparable and in some cases better than the activity profile of etoposide in this assay. Interestingly, we obtained strong evidence from spectroscopic and X-ray data analyses that the previously reported structure of similar analogues is not accurate. Molecular modelling performed using the podophyllotoxin binding site on β tubulin revealed a novel binding mode of these analogues. Furthermore, sub-cellular study of our compounds using immunolabelling and confocal microscopy analyses showed strong microtubule disruptive activity, particularly in dividing cells. Editions Scientifiques Elsevier 2016-03-03 /pmc/articles/PMC4762250/ /pubmed/26854430 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejmech.2015.12.037 Text en © 2016 The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
repository_type Open Access Journal
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building NCBI PubMed
collection Online Access
language English
format Online
author Kandil, Sahar
Wymant, Jennifer M.
Kariuki, Benson M.
Jones, Arwyn T.
McGuigan, Christopher
Westwell, Andrew D.
spellingShingle Kandil, Sahar
Wymant, Jennifer M.
Kariuki, Benson M.
Jones, Arwyn T.
McGuigan, Christopher
Westwell, Andrew D.
Novel cis-selective and non-epimerisable C3 hydroxy azapodophyllotoxins targeting microtubules in cancer cells
author_facet Kandil, Sahar
Wymant, Jennifer M.
Kariuki, Benson M.
Jones, Arwyn T.
McGuigan, Christopher
Westwell, Andrew D.
author_sort Kandil, Sahar
title Novel cis-selective and non-epimerisable C3 hydroxy azapodophyllotoxins targeting microtubules in cancer cells
title_short Novel cis-selective and non-epimerisable C3 hydroxy azapodophyllotoxins targeting microtubules in cancer cells
title_full Novel cis-selective and non-epimerisable C3 hydroxy azapodophyllotoxins targeting microtubules in cancer cells
title_fullStr Novel cis-selective and non-epimerisable C3 hydroxy azapodophyllotoxins targeting microtubules in cancer cells
title_full_unstemmed Novel cis-selective and non-epimerisable C3 hydroxy azapodophyllotoxins targeting microtubules in cancer cells
title_sort novel cis-selective and non-epimerisable c3 hydroxy azapodophyllotoxins targeting microtubules in cancer cells
description Podophyllotoxin (PT) and its clinically used analogues are known to be powerful antitumour agents. These compounds contain a trans fused strained γ-lactone system, a feature that correlates to the process of epimerisation, whereby the trans γ-lactone system of ring D opens and converts to the more thermodynamically stable cis epimer. Since these cis epimers are known to be either less active or lacking antitumour activity, epimerisation is an undesirable feature from a chemotherapeutic point of view. To circumvent this problem, considerable efforts have been reported, amongst which is the synthesis of azapodophyllotoxins where the stereocentres at C2 and C3 are removed in order to preclude epimerisation. Herein we report the identification of a novel C3 hydroxy, cis-selective γ-lactone configuration of ring C in the azapodophyllotoxin scaffold, through an efficient stereoselective multicomponent reaction (MCR) involving fluorinated and non-fluorinated aldehydes. This configuration releases the highly strained trans γ-lactone system in podophyllotoxin analogues into the more thermodynamically stable cis γ-lactone motif and yet retains significantly potent activity. These compounds were evaluated against the human cancer lines MCF-7 and 22Rv1 in vitro. Fourteen out of the seventeen tested compounds exhibited sub-micromolar activity with IC50 values in the range of 0.11–0.91 μM, which is comparable and in some cases better than the activity profile of etoposide in this assay. Interestingly, we obtained strong evidence from spectroscopic and X-ray data analyses that the previously reported structure of similar analogues is not accurate. Molecular modelling performed using the podophyllotoxin binding site on β tubulin revealed a novel binding mode of these analogues. Furthermore, sub-cellular study of our compounds using immunolabelling and confocal microscopy analyses showed strong microtubule disruptive activity, particularly in dividing cells.
publisher Editions Scientifiques Elsevier
publishDate 2016
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4762250/
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