The effect of deoxyfluorination and O-acylation on the cytotoxicity of N-acetyl-D-gluco- and D-galactosamine hemiacetals

Org Biomol Chem. 2021 May 26;19(20):4497-4506. doi: 10.1039/d1ob00497b.

Abstract

Fully acetylated deoxyfluorinated hexosamine analogues and non-fluorinated 3,4,6-tri-O-acylated N-acetyl-hexosamine hemiacetals have previously been shown to display moderate anti-proliferative activity. We prepared a set of deoxyfluorinated GlcNAc and GalNAc hemiacetals that comprised both features: O-acylation at the non-anomeric positions with an acetyl, propionyl and butanoyl group, and deoxyfluorination at selected positions. Determination of the in vitro cytotoxicity towards the MDA-MB-231 breast cancer and HEK-293 cell lines showed that deoxyfluorination enhanced cytotoxicity in most analogues. Increasing the ester alkyl chain length had a variable effect on the cytotoxicity of fluoro analogues, which contrasted with non-fluorinated hemiacetals where butanoyl derivatives had always higher cytotoxicity than acetates. Reaction with 2-phenylethanethiol indicated that the recently described S-glyco-modification is an unlikely cause of cytotoxicity.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Galactosamine*

Substances

  • Galactosamine