Abstract
The potent antimalarial drug pyronaridine (PND) was tested for its potential as an anticancer drug. After exposing cancerous (17) and non-cancerous (2) cells to PND for 72 hr, PND was found to exhibit consistent and potent cytotoxic activity at low micromolar (μM) concentrations that ranged from 1.6 μM to 9.4 μM. Moreover, PND exerted a significant selective cytotoxicity index (SCI) on five out of seven breast cancer cell lines tested, with favorable values of 2.5 to 4.4, as compared with the non-cancerous breast MCF-10A cell line. By using the same comparison, PND exhibited a significant SCI on three out of four leukemia/lymphoma cell lines with promising values of 3.3 to 3.5. One breast cancer and one leukemia cell line were tested further in order to determine the likely mode of action of PND. PND was found to consistently elicit phosphatidylserine externalization, mitochondrial depolarization, and DNA fragmentation, in both the triple negative MDA-MB-231 breast cancer and HL-60 leukemia cell lines. In addition, PND treatment altered cell cycle progression in both cancer cells. Subsequent DNA mobility-shift assays, UV-Visible spectroscopic titrations, and circular dichroism (CD) experiments revealed that PND intercalates with DNA. The findings presented in this study indicates that PND induces apoptosis and interfered with cell cycle progression of cancer cell lines and these results indicate that this drug has the potential as a repurposed drug for cancer therapy.
Highlights
The drug pyronaridine (PND) is a benzonaphthyridine derivative initially synthesized in 1970 at the Institute of Chinese Parasitic Disease and has been used in China for over 30 years for the treatment of malaria [1]
PND exerted a potent cytotoxicity on all cells tested with consistent concentration 50% (CC50) values at low micromolar concentrations that ranged from 1.6 μM to 9.4 μM (Table 1)
Gold nanorod complexes containing PND and DOX were found to be more effective than free DOX in their toxicity against MCF-7/ ADR cancer cells and this toxicity was further enhanced by near-infrared radiation [6]
Summary
The drug pyronaridine (PND) is a benzonaphthyridine derivative initially synthesized in 1970 at the Institute of Chinese Parasitic Disease and has been used in China for over 30 years for the treatment of malaria [1]. Previous reports indicated that PND inhibits β-hematin formation promoting β-hematin-induced red blood cell lysis based on in vitro studies of Plasmodium falciparum K1 [2]. It was suggested that PND could be an inhibitor of DNA topoisomerase. PND induces apoptosis in a variety of cancer cell types. Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, a component of National Institutes of Health.
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