Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (iCC) is a serious liver cancer threatening human health. However, there are a few chemotherapeutic drugs for the treatment of iCC in the clinic. It is extremely urgent to develop new drugs for iCC. In this study, twenty dinitroazetidine and coumarin hybrids were synthesized and evaluated anti-iCC bioactivity as a new type of nitric oxide (NO) donors. Among them, compounds 2–5 and 21 showed a higher antiproliferative activity against RBE cell lines (human intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma cell lines) and low cytotoxicity in nontumor cells (HOSEpiC and T29). The preliminary study of pharmacology mechanism indicated that compounds 2–5 and 21 could release effective concentration of NO in RBE cell lines, which leaded to inhibit the proliferation of RBE cell lines. The research results revealed that compound 3 inhibited the proliferation of RBE cell lines by inducing apoptosis and arresting cell cycle at G2/M phase. Additionally, compound 3 had acceptable metabolic stability. Therefore, compound 3 was merited to further explore for developing a desirable NO donor lead with anti-iCC activity.
肝内胆管癌(iCC)是一种严重威胁人类健康的肝癌。然而,在临床上用于治疗iCC的化疗药物很少。因此,开发新的iCC药物迫在眉睫。在这项研究中,合成了二硝基氮杂环丙烷和香豆素的二十种杂化物,并作为一种新型一氧化氮(NO)供体评估其抗iCC生物活性。其中,化合物2-5和21对RBE细胞系(人类肝内胆管癌细胞系)表现出更高的抗增殖活性,并且在非肿瘤细胞(HOSEpiC和T29)中的细胞毒性较低。药理机制的初步研究表明,化合物2-5和21可以释放有效浓度的NO在RBE细胞系中,从而抑制RBE细胞系的增殖。研究结果表明,化合物3通过诱导细胞凋亡和阻止细胞周期在G2 / M期抑制RBE细胞系的增殖。此外,化合物3具有可接受的代谢稳定性。因此,化合物3值得进一步探索,以开发具有抗iCC活性的理想NO供体引物。