A novel heteroleptic Cu(II)-phenanthroline-UDCA complex as lipoxygenase inhibitor and ER-stress inducer in cancer cell lines.

A new heteroleptic copper(II) compound named C0-UDCA was prepared by reaction of [Cu(phen) ₂ (OH ₂ )](ClO ₄ ) ₂ (C0) with the bile ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA). The resulting compound is able to inhibit the lipoxygenase enzyme showing more efficacy than the precursors C0 and UDCA. Molecular docking simulations clarified the interactions with the enzyme as due to allosteric modulation. The new complex shows antitumoral effect on ovarian (SKOV-3) and pancreatic (PANC-1) cancer cells at the Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) level by activating the Unfolded Protein Response. In particular, the chaperone BiP, the pro-apoptotic protein CHOP and the transcription factor ATF6 are upregulated in the presence of C0-UDCA. The combination of Intact Cell MALDI-MS and statistical analysis have allowed us to discriminate between untreated and treated cells based on their mass spectrometry fingerprints.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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