Structural Optimization of Isoquinoline Derivatives from Lycobetaine and Their Inhibitory Activity against Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer Cells

Neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC) is a highly aggressive cancer that is resistant to hormone therapy and characterized by poor prognosis, as well as limited therapeutic options. Since the natural product lycobetaine was reported to exhibit good antitumor activities against various types of cancers, we initially simplified the scaffold of lycobetaine to obtain the active compound 1, an isoquinoline derivative with an aryl moiety substitution at the 4-position, which showed apparent antiproliferative activities against NPEC cell line LASCPC-01 in vitro. Subsequently, we carried out structural optimization and systematic structure–activity relationship (SAR) studies on compound 1, leading to the discovery of compound 46, which demonstrated potent inhibitory activities against the LASCPC-01 cell line with an IC50 value of 0.47 μM. Moreover, compound 46 displayed remarkable selectivity over prostate cancer cell line PC-3 with a selectivity index greater than 190-fold. Further cell-based mechanism studies revealed that compound 46 and lycobetaine can effectively induce G1 cell cycle arrest and apoptosis dose dependently. However, lycobetaine inhibited the expression of neuroendocrine markers, while compound 46 slightly upregulated these proteins. This suggested that compound 46 might exert its antitumor activities through a different mechanism than lycobetaine, warranting further study.