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Great strides have been made in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) treatment, which represents 20% of total predicted annual US breast cancer (BC) cases. Despite the development of several therapeutics, TNBC patients have poor overall survival rate, compared to other BC patients, justifying the urgent need to discover new entities for use to control TNBC. Chalcones are important natural products with diverse bioactivities including anticancer effects. This study aimed to design, synthesize and validate novel chalcone leads as potential therapies for TNBC. Fourteen novel chalcone analogs were designed and synthesized comprising alicyclic amines (pyrrolidine, morpholine and piperidine) or nitrogen mustard (Bis-(2-chloroethyl) amine) substituents. Among them, compound 14 ((E)-3-(4-(Bis(2-chloroethyl) amino) phenyl)-1-(3-methoxyphenyl) prop-2-en-1-one) was identified as the most effective against TNBC and other BC phenotypes, with anti-proliferative IC50 values ranging between 3.94 and 9.22 μM against the TNBC cell lines MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-468, as well as against the estrogen positive MCF-7 cell line. Chalcone 14 effectively suppressed the colony formation capacity of MDA-MB-231, MDA-MB-468, and MCF-7 cell lines at 5 and 10 μM treatment concentrations. Furthermore, compound 14 has significantly inhibited cell invasion and migration of MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 BC cell lines. Additionally, compound 14 had significantly promoted apoptosis by upregulating BAX and downregulating Bcl-2 proteins. Compound 14 induced significant cell cycle arrest of TNBC cells at the G2/M phase. It also induced a reversal of Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) by upregulating the epithelial markers E-cadherin and Pan-cadherin and downregulating FAK. Furthermore, it had dramatically diminished new vessel formation (vasculogenesis) in chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) model by 60.20 ± 8.47%. Chalcone 14 inhibited 46.41 ± 0.71% of the TNBC MAD-MB-231 cells growth in a nude mouse orthotopic xenograft model in comparison with vehicle control treated animals. Collectively, this study results propose chalcone 14 as a promising lead molecule for the control of TNBC as well as other breast cancer phenotypes. This research work was supported by Grants# GCC-2017-2 and QUST-1-CPH-2018-18 from Qatar University ; and GSRA award# GSRA4-2-0418-17024 from Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). Scopus

The dysfunction of histone deacetylase (HDACs) is closely related to tumorigenesis and development, which has been emerged as an attractive drug design target for cancer therapy. In the present study, we designed and synthesized a series of novel HDAC inhibitors using a substituted quinazoline as the capping group and attaching 3, 5-dimethylbenyl as a potential metabolic site protector. 23g and 23h were demonstrated potent HDAC inhibitory activities and anti-proliferative effects against MDA-MB-231 cells. In addition, 23g and 23h both could significantly increase the acetylation level of intracellular proteins, especially in α-Tubulin and HSP90. 23g and 23h displayed a slight different anti-tumor mechanism, 23g mainly induced apoptosis while 23h induced obviously ER-Stress. Furthermore, 23g and 23h both induced autophagy and migration inhibition. In pharmacokinetics assay, 23g showed a significant improvement of pharmacokinetic profile for oral administration. Additionally, 23g presented more potent anti-proliferation and anti-migration activity than SAHA in zebrafish MDA-MB-231 cell line-derived xenograft model. Together, these results demonstrate that 23g is a novel oral HDAC inhibitor with a potential capacity of treating breast cancer.

34 Xanthones were synthesized by microwave assisted technique. Their in vitro inhibition activities against five cell lines growth were evaluated. The SAR has been thoroughly discussed. 7-Bromo-1,3-dihydroxy-9H-xanthen-9-one (3-1) was confirmed as the most active agent against MDA-MB-231 cell line growth with an IC50 of 0.46 ± 0.03 μM. Combination of 3-1 and 5,6-dimethylxanthone-4-acetic acid (DMXAA) showed the best synergistic effect. Apoptosis analysis indicated different contributions of early/late apoptosis and necrosis to cell death for both monomers and the combination. Western Blot implied that the combination regulated p53/MDM2 to a better healthy state. Furthermore, 3-1 and DMXAA arrested more cells on G2/M phase; while the combination arrested more cells on S phase. All the evidences support that the 3-1/DMXAA combination is a better anti-cancer therapy.

Forty eight 2-phenylnaphthalenoids were designed and successfully synthesized. Their in vitro cytotoxicities against the proliferations of MDA-MB-231, A549 and HeLa cell lines and inhibitory activities on DNA topoisomerase were evaluated. The quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) studies were established on the basis of cytotoxicity data from MDA-MB-231 cell line. Among these compounds, compound 5 showed potent antiproliferative activity (IC 50 = 1 μM) against MDA-MB-231 cells and inhibitory activity on topoisomeraseIIα. Further, in vivo antitumor study with xenograft nude mice indicated that compound 5 inhibited the growth of MDA-MB-231 cells and showed lower toxicity than etoposide (VP16). This work indicates that 2-phenylnaphthalenoids represent a novel type of TopoIIα-inhibitory scaffold for developing new antitumor chemotherapeutic agents.

In this study, a series of pyrazole-based structural analogues of GGTI-DU40 (1) have been synthesized and biologically evaluated for geranylgeranyltransferase 1 (GGT1) and farnesyltransferase (FT) inhibition. The screening results revealed that 2 (IC50 = 2.4 μM) and 5 (IC50 = 3.1 μM) are potent GGT1 inhibitors (GGTIs), possessing higher inhibitory activity compared to the control compound 1 (IC50 = 3.3 μM). The anti-proliferative efficacy of these compounds was further assayed against MDA-MB-231 cells which indicated a significantly higher activity of 2 (IC50 = 7.6 μM) compared to 1 (IC50 = 23.0 μM). To examine the capacity of the synthesized compounds to inhibit GGT1 in an intact cell, western blot analysis was performed on the MDA-MB-231 cell line, which revealed very high inhibitory cellular activity of 2 and 5 and demonstrated their capacity to inhibit prenylation of endogenous proteins. Molecular docking studies of 2 against the crystal structure of GGT1 complexed with a geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate (GGPP) Analog and a CaaX (C = cysteine, aa = aliphatic amino acids, and X = any amino acid) portion of the KKKSKTKCVIL peptide substrate revealed several hydrogen bonding interactions and π-π contacts between 2 and the binding pocket of GGT1. Together these data suggest that compound 2 could proceed to in vivo investigation to further assess its efficacy and cytotoxicity.

Twenty four compounds with diversified 3-aryl acrylic amide side chains of the simplified saframycin-ecteinascidin pentacyclic skeleton were synthesized via a 14-step stereospecific route starting from L-dopa. The cytotoxicities of these compounds were tested against eight human tumor cell lines including HCT-8, BEL-7402, BGC-803, A549, A2780, MCF-7, MX-1, and MDA-MB-231. Most of these compounds exhibited potent antitumor activity, and a preliminary structure-activity relationship (SAR) was discussed. Compound 28 with 3-thiophenyl acrylic amide side chain exhibited selective cytotoxicity against MDA-MB-231 cell line with the IC50 value of 50 nM.

A series of 2-hydrazinyl-4-morpholinothieno[3,2-d]pyrimidine derivatives were synthesized and evaluated for their cytotoxic activities against five cancer cell lines. Most of them exhibited moderate to significant cytotoxic activities and high-selectivity against one or more cell lines, and nearly all of them had higher potency than positive controls against MDA-MB-231 cell line. The most promising compound 15f showed strong cytotoxic activities against H460, HT-29 and MDA-MB-231 cell lines, which were 1.7- to 66.5-folds more active than 2-(1H-Indazol-4-yl)-6-((4-(methylsulfonyl)-1-piperazinyl)methyl)-4-(4-morpholinyl)thieno[3,2-d]pyrimidine(GDC-0941). To investigate the SARs of thieno[3,2-d]pyrimidine derivatives in more details, CoMFA (q2 = 0.436, r2 = 0.937) and CoMSIA (q2 = 0.706, r2 = 0.947) models on H460 cell line were established. The generated 3D-QSAR models can be used for further rational design of novel thienopyrimidines as highly potent and selective cytotoxic agents.

A series of C5-substituted licofelone ([2,2-dimethyl-6-(4-chlorophenyl)-7-phenyl-2,3-dihydro-1H-pyrrolizin-5-yl]acetic acid) derivatives were developed by a parallel synthesis approach and investigated for cytotoxicity against MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells as well as for anti-inflammatory potency in vitro and in vivo. Dependent on the C5-substituent, the compounds showed high selectivity for MCF-7 cells. Especially 2-oxoethyl benzoate derivatives were inactive at the MDA-MB-231 cell line and as active as 5-FU at MCF-7 cells. C5-acetyl (8a), -2-oxoethyl formiate (8e), -2-oxoethyl acetate (8f) and -2-oxoethyl propionate (8g) derivatives showed growth inhibition at both cell lines, comparable with cisplatin. Modifications significantly reduced the inhibitory potency at COX-1 and COX-2 in vitro and in the xylene-induced ear swelling assay in mice. Only compound 8a was equipotent to licofelone, ibuprofen and celecoxibe in vivo.