Design, synthesis of Janus dendrons conjugated with ketoprofen and prednisone for human chronic myelogenous therapy

Abstract

Herein we present the synthesis of ketoprofen dendrons of first and second generation, with oxobutanoic acid chain lengths, a β-d-galactose derivative, an alkyne terminal group and the other dendrons with prednisone-triethylene glycol with an azide terminal group. Finally, the Janus dendrons were obtained by a coupling azide-alkyne “click” reaction. The cytotoxicity in vitro of the dendrons was evaluated against six different cancer cell lines and only showed activity against human chronic myelogenous leukemia (K-562) cells, the African green monkey kidney (COS-7) cell line was used as reference. The IC50 of the dendrons of first and second generation against K-562 was from 51.29 ± 0.1 μM, 47.17 ± 0.7 μM and 37.15 ± 0.6 μM respectively. However, the Janus dendron of first and second generation showed IC50 (13.43 ± 0.5 μM and 7.02 ± 0.2 μM) respectively. The most interesting result was obtained with the Janus dendrimer of second generation, which was found to be the best inhibitor of this series against the K-562 cell line.