Structure-Activity Studies on Therapeutic Potential of Thymoquinone Analogs in Pancreatic Cancer
作者:Sanjeev Banerjee、Asfar S. Azmi、Subhash Padhye、Marjit W. Singh、Jubaraj B. Baruah、Philip A. Philip、Fazlul H. Sarkar、Ramzi M. Mohammad
DOI:10.1007/s11095-010-0145-3
日期:2010.6
Pancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the deadliest of all tumors. Previously, we were the first to show that Thymoquinone (TQ) derived from black seed (Nigella sativa) oil has anti-tumor activity against PC. However, the concentration of TQ required was considered to be high to show this efficacy. Therefore, novel analogs of TQ with lower IC50 are highly desirable. We have synthesized a series of 27 new analogs of TQ by modifications at the carbonyl sites or the benzenoid sites using single pot synthesis and tested their biological activity in PC cells. Among these compounds, TQ-2G, TQ-4A1 and TQ-5A1 (patent pending) were found to be more potent than TQ in terms of inhibition of cell growth, induction of apoptosis and modulation of transcription factor-NF-κB. We also found that our novel analogs were able to sensitize gemcitabine and oxaliplatin-induced apoptosis in MiaPaCa-2 (gemcitabine resistant) PC cells, which was associated with down-regulation of Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, survivin, XIAP, COX-2 and the associated Prostaglandin E2. From our results, we conclude that three of our novel TQ analogs warrant further investigation against PC, especially in combination with conventional chemotherapeutic agents.
胰腺癌(PC)是所有肿瘤中最致命的一种。此前,我们首次证明了一种源自黑种草(Nigella sativa)油的成分——胸腺酮(TQ)对胰腺癌具有抗肿瘤活性。然而,所需的TQ浓度被认为过高,难以显示其疗效。因此,具有更低IC50的新型TQ类似物是非常渴望的。我们通过对羰基位点或苯环位点进行改造,采用单锅合成方法合成了一系列27种新型TQ类似物,并测试了它们在胰腺癌细胞中的生物活性。在这些化合物中,TQ-2G、TQ-4A1和TQ-5A1(专利申请中)在抑制细胞生长、诱导凋亡和调节转录因子NF-κB方面显示出比TQ更强的活性。我们还发现,我们的新型类似物能够增强MiaPaCa-2(耐吉西他滨)胰腺癌细胞中吉西他滨和奥沙利铂诱导的凋亡,这与Bcl-2、Bcl-xL、survivin、XIAP、COX-2及相关前列腺素E2的下调有关。综上所述,我们得出结论,三种新型TQ类似物值得进一步对胰腺癌的研究,特别是与传统化疗药物结合使用。