Millepachine, a bioactive natural product isolated from the seeds of Millettia pachycarpa, is reported to display potential antitumor activity. In this study, novel indole-containing hybrids derived from millepachine were designed, synthesized and evaluated for their antitumor activities. Among all the compounds, compound 14b exhibited the most potent cytotoxic activity against five kinds of human cancer cell lines, with IC50 values ranging from 0.022 to 0.074 μM, making it almost 100 times more active than millepachine. Valuable structure-activity relationships (SARs) were obtained. Furthermore, the mechanism studies showed that compound 14b induced cell-cycle arrest at the G2/M phase by inhibiting tubulin polymerization and further induced cell apoptosis through reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation and mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) collapse. In addition, the low cytotoxicity toward normal human cells and equivalent sensitivity towards drug-resistant cells of compound 14b highlighted its potential for the development of antitumor drugs.
Keywords: antitumor; millepachine; tubulin polymerization inhibitors.