Hepatocellular carcinoma targeting agents: conjugates of nitroimidazoles with trimethyl nordihydroguaiaretic acid

Bioelectric pharmacology of cancer: A systematic review of ion channel drugs affecting the cancer phenotype

Cancer is a pernicious and pressing medical problem; moreover, it is a failure of multicellular morphogenesis that sheds much light on evolutionary developmental biology. Numerous classes of pharmacological agents have been considered as cancer therapeutics and evaluated as potential carcinogenic agents; however, these are spread throughout the primary literature. Here, we briefly review recent work on ion channel drugs as promising anti-cancer treatments and present a systematic review of the known cancer-relevant effects of 109 drugs targeting ion channels. The roles of ion channels in cancer are consistent with the importance of bioelectrical parameters in cell regulation and with the functions of bioelectric signaling in morphogenetic signals that act as cancer suppressors. We find that compounds that are well-known for having targets in the nervous system, such as voltage-gated ion channels, ligand-gated ion channels, proton pumps, and gap junctions are especially relevant to cancer. Our review suggests further opportunities for the repurposing of numerous promising candidates in the field of cancer electroceuticals.

Two groups of copperII pyridine–triazole complexes with “open or close” pepper rings and their in vitro antitumor activities

Based on 1,2-dimethoxyphenyl (veratrole, open) and 1,2-methylenedioxyphenyl (pepper ring, close)-derived pyridine–triazole analogues, two groups of copper(ii) complexes, namely, Group I(C1–C3) and Group II(C4–C6) were synthesized and fully characterized. All ligands and complexes were tested in vitro by MTT assays on seven tumour cell lines (T24, Hep-G2, Sk-Ov-3, MGC-803, HeLa, A549 and NCI-H460) and one normal liver cell line (HL-7702). Surprisingly, the pepper-ring-derived complexes (C4–C6) showed significantly enhanced cytotoxicity compared with the 1,2-bimethoxyphenyl ring-derived complexes (C1–C3) and the standard anticancer drug cisplatin. Cellular uptake assays indicated that the Cu accumulation was consistent with cytotoxicity. In addition, flow cytometry and western blot analysis showed that the apoptosis of the leading complex C4 may be induced by the Bcl-2 family-mediated proteins through the mitochondrial dysfunction pathway. Furthermore, UV-vis and fluorescence spectroscopy assays revealed that C4 has stronger insertion-binding interactions with CT-DNA than C1 and the fluorescence of C1 and C4 with BSA is mainly quenched by static quenching.

The pepper ring-modified complexes (Group II, C4–C6) exhibited significant antitumor activity than veratrole-modified complexes (Group I, C1–C3) towards several cancer cells with IC₅₀ ranging from 3.45 to 8.59 μM.

Development of nordihydroguaiaretic acid derivatives as potential multidrug-resistant selective agents for cancer treatment

A new series of nordihydroguaiaretic acid (NDGA) derivatives have been synthesized for the research of multidrug resistance (MDR) in cancer.