New tacrine dimers with antioxidant linkers as dual drugs: Anti-Alzheimer's and antiproliferative agents

European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry
2017.0

Abstract

We have designed a series of tacrine-based homo- and heterodimers that incorporate an antioxidant tether (selenoureido, chalcogenide) as new dual compounds: for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and as antiproliferative agents. Symmetrical homodimers bearing a dichalcogenide or selenide-based tether, the best compounds in the series, were found to be strong and highly selective electric eel AChE inhibitors, with inhibition constants within the low nanomolar range. This high inhibitory activity was confirmed on recombinant human AChE for the most interesting derivatives. The three most promising homodimers also showed a good inhibitory activity towards amyloid-β self aggregation. The symmetric disulfide derivative bis[5-(1',2',3',4'-tetrahydroacridin-9'-ylamino)pentyl]disulfide (19) showed the best multipotent profile and was not neurotoxic on immortalized mouse cortical neurons even at 50 μM concentration. These results represent an improvement in activity and selectivity compared to parent tacrine, the first marketed drug against Alzheimer's disease. Title compounds also exhibited excellent in vitro antiproliferative activities against a panel of 6 human tumor cell lines, with GI50 values within the submicromolar range for the most potent derivatives (0.12-0.95 μM); such values represent a spectacular increase compared to currently-used chemotherapeutic agents, such as 5-FU (up to 306-fold) and cisplatin (up to 162-fold). Cell cycle experiments indicated the accumulation of cells in the G1 phase of the cycle, a different mechanism than the reported for cisplatin. The breast cancer cell lines turned out to be the most sensitive one of the panel tested.

Knowledge Graph

Similar Paper

New tacrine dimers with antioxidant linkers as dual drugs: Anti-Alzheimer's and antiproliferative agents
European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 2017.0
Multi-target strategy to address Alzheimer’s disease: Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of new tacrine-based dimers
European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 2011.0
Synthesis and pharmacological evaluation of multifunctional tacrine derivatives against several disease pathways of AD
Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters 2015.0
Design, synthesis and bioevaluation of tacrine hybrids with cinnamate and cinnamylidene acetate derivatives as potential anti-Alzheimer drugs
MedChemComm 2015.0
Tacrine-O-protected phenolics heterodimers as multitarget-directed ligands against Alzheimer's disease: Selective subnanomolar BuChE inhibitors
European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 2019.0
Homodimeric Tacrine Congeners as Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitors
Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 2002.0
Design, synthesis and evaluation of novel tacrine-multialkoxybenzene hybrids as multi-targeted compounds against Alzheimer's disease
European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 2016.0
Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Novel Tacrine Derivatives and Tacrine–Coumarin Hybrids as Cholinesterase Inhibitors
Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 2014.0
Multifunctional tacrine–trolox hybrids for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease with cholinergic, antioxidant, neuroprotective and hepatoprotective properties
European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 2015.0
Novel tacrine–ebselen hybrids with improved cholinesterase inhibitory, hydrogen peroxide and peroxynitrite scavenging activity
Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters 2013.0