Synthesis of heterocycle-modified betulinic acid derivatives as antitumor agents

Hai-Wei Cui; Yuan He; Jinhua Wang; Wei Gao; Ting Liu; Min Qin; Xue Wang; Cheng Gao; Yan Wang; Ming-Yao Liu; Zhengfang Yi; Wen-Wei Qiu

doi:10.1016/j.ejmech.2015.03.048

Synthesis of heterocycle-modified betulinic acid derivatives as antitumor agents

Eur J Med Chem. 2015 May 5:95:240-8. doi: 10.1016/j.ejmech.2015.03.048. Epub 2015 Mar 21.

Authors

Hai-Wei Cui¹, Yuan He², Jinhua Wang², Wei Gao¹, Ting Liu³, Min Qin², Xue Wang², Cheng Gao¹, Yan Wang¹, Ming-Yao Liu², Zhengfang Yi⁴, Wen-Wei Qiu⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, 500 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200241, China.
² Shanghai Key Laboratory of Regulatory Biology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences and School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China.
³ Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Molecular Therapeutics and New Drug Development, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, North Zhongshan Road, Shanghai 200062, China.
⁴ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Regulatory Biology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences and School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China. Electronic address: zfyi@bio.ecnu.edu.cn.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, 500 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200241, China. Electronic address: wwqiu@chem.ecnu.edu.cn.

PMID: 25817774
DOI: 10.1016/j.ejmech.2015.03.048

Abstract

A series of novel heterocycle-modified betulinic acid (BA) derivatives were synthesized and investigated for their activity against the growth of eight non-drug resistant and one multidrug-resistant tumor cell line using a sulforhodamine B (SRB) assay. The most active compound 17 showed an average IC50 1.19 μM, which was about 20 times more potent than the lead compound BA. It is amazing that for most synthetic saturated N-heterocycle derivatives, MCF-7/ADR was the most sensitive tumor cells, especially 17 showed the most potent antitumor activity (IC50 = 0.33 μM) on this multidrug-resistant tumor cell line, that was 117 times more potent than BA. Most of the tested compounds displayed less toxic on human fibroblasts (HAF) in comparison with the tumor cell lines. The cytometry and transwell migration assays were used to test the ability of 17 to induce apoptosis and inhibit metastasis on tumor cell lines respectively.

Keywords: Antitumor; Apoptosis; Betulinic acid; Migration; Triterpenoids.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Antineoplastic Agents / chemical synthesis*
Antineoplastic Agents / chemistry
Antineoplastic Agents / pharmacology*
Apoptosis / drug effects
Betulinic Acid
Cell Line, Tumor
Cell Movement
Cell Proliferation
Chemistry Techniques, Synthetic
Drug Screening Assays, Antitumor
Heterocyclic Compounds / chemistry*
Humans
Pentacyclic Triterpenes
Triterpenes / chemical synthesis*
Triterpenes / chemistry
Triterpenes / pharmacology*

Substances

Antineoplastic Agents
Heterocyclic Compounds
Pentacyclic Triterpenes
Triterpenes
Betulinic Acid