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Taspine is an alkaloid found in the latex of certain trees belonging to the family of Euphorbiaceae, commonly called “Sangre de Drago” (Dragon's blood). Its structure and antineoplastic properties are well known. Here we report the total synthesis of taspine, starting from ferulic acid and isovanillin. The successful synthetic strategy was then applied to the synthesis of a symmetrical analogue TAS2C. Both the synthesised compounds were tested by ESI-MS (electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry) for their ability to bind different quadruplex and duplex DNA structures.

International audience; Following the results we previously reported on a series of xanthene and xanthone derivatives as G-quad-ruplex stabilizing ligands, in order to obtain a more selective compound with respect to the previous generation of derivatives, we decided to modify the structure of the core ligand, specifically its aromatic extension. In particular, here we report the design, synthesis and activity data of a new compound obtained by dimerization of the xanthene core (HELIXA4C). The reported results show that extension of the aromatic core and the increase of the number of polar side chains led to a great enhancement of G-quadruplex selectivity and telomere damage capability, as derived using ESI-MS evaluation, in vitro cancer screening and specific immunofluorescence assays.

Following previous studies on anthraquinone and acridine-based G-quadruplex ligands, here we present a study of similar aromatic cores, with the specific aim of increasing G-quadruplex binding and selectivity with respect to duplex DNA. Synthesized compounds include two and three-side chain xanthone and xanthene derivatives, as well as a dimeric “bridged” form. ESI and FRET measurements suggest that all the studied molecules are good G-quadruplex ligands, both at telomeres and on G-quadruplex forming sequences of oncogene promoters. The dimeric compound and the three-side chain xanthone derivative have been shown to represent the best compounds emerging from the different series of ligands presented here, having also high selectivity for G-quadruplex structures with respect to duplex DNA. Molecular modeling simulations are in broad agreement with the experimental data.