Abstract
A series of novel curcumin analogues were synthesized by optimization of its aromatic ring. The antiproliferative activities of these analogues were screened against four human cancer cell lines by MTT assay and some displayed significant improvement in antiproliferative activity compared with curcumin. The most potent compound 10 exhibited antiproliferative activity against Caco-2, Bel-7402, MDA-MB-231, and DU145 cancer cells with IC50 values of 2.04, 1.54, 4.99, and 3.22 μM, respectively. Annexin V/propidium iodide double staining and flow cytometry cell cycle analysis using propidium iodide DNA staining revealed that compound 10 induced apoptosis and cell cycle arrest at G1 phase in Bel-7402 cells in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, in an in vivo mouse model of liver cancer xenograft, compound 10 substantially inhibited liver tumor growth at a dose of 20 mg/kg/day without observable toxic effect.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by grants from the National Program on Key Basic Research Project (973 Program, No. 2011CB504405), the National Natural Scientific Foundation of China (No. 81372121, 81572146), and the Key Project of Shanghai Science and Technology Commission (No. 13411951002).
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Zhang, L., Zong, H., Lu, H. et al. Discovery of novel anti-tumor curcumin analogues from the optimization of curcumin scaffold. Med Chem Res 26, 2468–2476 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00044-017-1946-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00044-017-1946-2