Antiproliferative hydrogen sulfide releasing evodiamine derivatives and their apoptosis inducing properties

Abstract

To explore antitumor agents with high efficiency and selectivity, two series of 16 H2S donating evodiamine derivatives 8–12 were synthesized and characterized by 1H NMR, 13C NMR and HRMS. Their antiproliferative activities were tested against five cancer cell lines (Bel-7402, MCF-7, SGC-7901, Caco-2 and HL-60) and human normal peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Among them, compound 12c showed the most potent inhibitory activities against human leukemia HL-60 and epithelial colorectal adenocarcinoma Caco-2 cells with IC50 values of 0.58 and 2.02 μM, respectively. Additionally, high selectivity was also observed between human normal peripheral blood mononuclear cells and human leukemia HL-60 cells. Further mechanism studies confirmed that 12c could induce apoptosis, arrest cell cycle at the G2/M phase and lead to mitochondrial dysfunction in HL-60 cells. Furthermore, western blot assay demonstrated that 12c induced the intrinsic apoptotic mitochondrial pathway by upregulating protein expression of Bax, cytochrome c, caspase-3, -9 and p53, and downregulating the relative levels of Bcl-2. The levels of cell cycle related proteins cyclin B1 and cdc2 were also downregulated in which G2/M phase arrest was confirmed. Overall, 12c possessed immense potential for the discovery of antitumor candidates with high efficiency and selectivity.