Emodin is a cell arrest and apoptosis-inducing compound that is widely distributed in different plants (rhubarb, aloe), lichens and terrestrial fungi, and also isolated from marine-derived fungi and marine sponge-associated fungi. In this study, we designed and synthesized a novel series of emodin derivatives by binding emodin to an amino acid using linkers of varying lengths and composition, and evaluated their anti-proliferative activities using HepG2 cells (human hepatic carcinoma), MCF-7 cells (human breast cancer) and human normal liver L02 cells. Most of these derivatives showed moderate to potent anti-proliferative activities. Notably, compound 7a exhibited potent anti-proliferative activity against HepG2 cells with the half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) value of 4.95 µM, which was enhanced 8.8-fold compared to the parent compound emodin (IC50 = 43.87 µM), and it also exhibited better selective anti-proliferative activity and specificity than emodin. Moreover, further experiments demonstrated that compound 7a displayed a significant efficacy of inducing apoptosis through mitochondrial pathway via release of cytochrome c from mitochondria and subsequent activation of caspase-9 and caspase-3, inducing cell arrest at G0/G1 phase, as well as suppression of cell migration of tumor cells. The preliminary results suggested that compound 7a could be a promising lead compound for the discovery of novel anti-tumor drugs and has the potential for further investigations as an anti-cancer drug.
大黄素是一种引起细胞停滞和凋亡的化合物,广泛分布于不同植物(
大黄、芦荟)、地衣和陆生真菌,同时也从海洋真菌和海绵相关真菌中分离出来。在这项研究中,我们设计并合成了一系列新型的
大黄素衍
生物,通过使用长度和组成不同的连接剂将
大黄素与
氨基酸结合,评估它们在HepG2细胞(人肝癌)、MCF-7细胞(人乳腺癌)和人正常肝细胞L02中的抗增殖活性。这些衍
生物中大多数显示出中等到强效的抗增殖活性。值得注意的是,化合物7a对HepG2细胞表现出强效的抗增殖活性,半数抑制浓度(IC50)值为4.95 µM,比母体化合物
大黄素(IC50 = 43.87 µM)提高了8.8倍,而且它还表现出比
大黄素更好的选择性抗增殖活性和特异性。此外,进一步的实验表明,化合物7a通过线粒体途径释放细胞色素c并随后激活caspase-9和caspase-3诱导凋亡,使细胞在G0/G1期停滞,同时抑制肿瘤细胞的迁移。初步结果表明,化合物7a可能是发现新型
抗肿瘤药物的有希望的先导化合物,并具有进一步作为抗癌药物进行研究的潜力。