OBHS Drives Abnormal Glycometabolis Reprogramming via GLUT1 in Breast Cancer

Due to the poor metabolic conditions fomenting the emergence of the Warburg effect (WE) phenotype, abnormal glycometabolism has become a unique and fundamental research topic in the field of tumor biology. Moreover, hyperglycemia and hyperinsulinism are associated with poor outcomes in patients with breast cancer. However, there are a few studies on anticancer drugs targeting glycometabolism in breast cancer. We hypothesized that Oxabicycloheptene sulfonate (OBHS), a class of compounds that function as selective estrogen receptor modulators, may hold potential in a therapy for breast cancer glycometabolism. Here, we evaluated concentrations of glucose, glucose transporters, lactate, 40 metabolic intermediates, and glycolytic enzymes using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, Western blotting, and targeted metabolomic analysis in, in vitro and in vivo breast cancer models. OBHS significantly inhibited the expression of glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1) via PI3K/Akt signaling pathway to suppress breast cancer progression and proliferation. Following an investigation of the modulatory effect of OBHS on breast cancer cells, we found that OBHS suppressed the glucose phosphorylation and oxidative phosphorylation of glycolytic enzymes, leading to the decreased biological synthesis of ATP. This study was novel in highlighting the role of OBHS in the remodeling of tumor glycometabolism in breast cancer, and this is worth further investigation of breast cancer in clinical trials.

Recent Advancements in the Development of Anti-Breast Cancer Synthetic Small Molecules

Among all cancer types, breast cancer (BC) still stands as one of the most serious diseases responsible for a large number of cancer-associated deaths among women worldwide, and diagnosed cases are increasing year by year worldwide. For a very long time, hormonal therapy, surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy were used for breast cancer treatment. However, these treatment approaches are becoming progressively futile because of multidrug resistance and serious side effects. Consequently, there is a pressing demand to develop more efficient and safer agents that can fight breast cancer belligerence and inhibit cancer cell proliferation, invasion and metastasis. Currently, there is an avalanche of newly designed and synthesized molecular entities targeting multiple types of breast cancer. This review highlights several important synthesized compounds with promising anti-BC activity that are categorized according to their chemical structures.

Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of novel dual-acting modulators targeting both estrogen receptor α (ERα) and lysine-specific demethylase 1 (LSD1) for treatment of breast cancer

Breast cancer is a multi-factor disease, thus more and more drug combination therapies are applied in the treatment. However, there are undeniable disadvantages in drug combination therapy. Therefore, the development of new dual-targeting drugs has become a new strategy. In this study, we have developed a series of dual-acting agents targeting both estrogen receptor α (ERα) and histone demethylase based on a privileged OBHS pharmacophore scaffold developed previously by our laboratory. These novel OBHS-LSD1i conjugates showed excellent ERα binding affinity and selectivity, and exhibited potent inhibitory activity against lysine specific demethylase 1 (LSD1). Several conjugates showed higher antiproliferative efficacy in MCF-7 breast cancer cell line compared to 4-hydroxytamoxifen in vitro. Among them, the best compound 11g displayed potent inhibitory activity against LSD1 and MCF-7 cells with IC₅₀ values of 1.55 μM and 8.79 μM, respectively. Flow cytometry analysis of apoptosis of 11g suggested that the effect of this type compounds on MCF-7 cells is partly caused by inducing apoptosis. Moreover, the molecular docking of 11g with ERα and the active site of LSD1/CoREST complex provides practical way for understanding the dual mechanism actions of this kind of compounds with the targets. As such, these compounds have shown potential to become promising leads for the development of highly efficient dual-acting modulators for breast cancer therapies.

Estrogen Receptor α (ERα)-targeting Compounds and Derivatives: Recent Advances in Structural Modification and Bioactivity

Breast cancer is the most common cancer suffered by female, and the second highest cause of cancer-related death among women worldwide. At present, hormone therapy is still the main treatment route and can be divided into three main categories: selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs), selective estrogen receptor downregulators (SERDs), and aromatase inhibitors (AIs). However, breast cancer is difficult to cure even after several rounds of anti-estrogen therapy and most drugs have serious side-effects. Here, we review the literature published over the past five years regarding the isolation and synthesis of analogs and their derivatives.

Rational approaches of drug design for the development of selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs), implicated in breast cancer

Drug discovery and development have gained momentum due to the rational drug design by engaging computational tools and bioinformatics methodologies. Bioisosteric replacements and hybrid molecular approaches are the other inventive processes, used by medicinal chemists for the desired modifications of leads for clinical drug candidates. SERMs, ought to produce inhibitory activity in breast, uterus and agonist activity in other tissues, are beneficial for estrogen-like actions. ER subtypes α and β are hormone dependent modulators of intracellular signaling and gene expression, and development of ER selective ligands could be an effective approach for treatment of breast cancer. This report has critically investigated the possible designing considerations of SERMs, their in silico interactions, and potent pharmacophore generation approaches viz. indole, restricted benzothiophene [3, 2-b] indole, carborane, xanthendione, combretastatin A-4, organometallic heterocycles, OBHS-SAHA hybrids, benzopyranones, tetrahydroisoquinolines, Dig G derivatives and their specifications in drug design and development, to rationally improve the understanding in drug discovery. This also includes various strategies for the development of dual inhibitors for the management of antiestrogenic resistance.

Novel Hybrid Conjugates with Dual Suppression of Estrogenic and Inflammatory Activities Display Significantly Improved Potency against Breast Cancer

In this work, we developed a small library of novel OBHS-RES hybrid compounds with dual inhibition activities targeting both the estrogen receptor α (ERα) and NF-κB by incorporating resveratrol (RES), a known inhibitor of NF-κB, into a privileged indirect antagonism structural motif (OBHS, oxabicycloheptene sulfonate) of estrogen receptor (ER). The OBHS-RES conjugates could bind well to ER and showed remarkable ERα antagonistic activity, and they also exhibited excellent NO inhibition in macrophage RAW 264.7 cells. Compared with 4-hydroxytamoxifen, some of them showed better antiproliferative efficacy in MCF-7 cell lines with IC₅₀ up to 3.7 μM. In vivo experiments in a MCF-7 breast cancer model in Balb/c nude mice indicated that compound 26a was more potent than tamoxifen. Exploration of the compliancy of the structure against ER specificity utilizing these types of isomeric three-dimensional ligands indicated that one enantiomer had much better biological activity than the other.

Current research on anti-breast cancer synthetic compounds

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer for females and its incidence tends to increase year by year.

Selenophene and thiophene-core estrogen receptor ligands that inhibit motility and development of parasitic stages of Haemonchus contortus

Background

Parasitic worms represent a substantial disease burden in animals and humans worldwide. The control of parasitic roundworms (nematodes) relies heavily on the use of anthelmintic drugs. However, widespread drug resistance in nematodes seriously compromises the effectiveness of many anthelmintics around the world. Thus, there is a need to discover new drugs, with unique modes of action, against parasites.

Methods

Here, we synthesised and tested 74 selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) for in vitro-activity on parasitic larvae of Haemonchus contortus (barber’s pole worm), one of the most important nematode pathogens of small ruminants (including sheep and goats) and a key representative of one of the largest groups of parasitic nematodes (the Strongylida) of animals. We also studied the morphology of treated and untreated larvae using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and assessed the agonistic/antagonistic activity of SERMs in a human embryonic kidney cell line using a luciferase reporter assay system.

Results

We identified three SERMs (one selenophene and two thiophene-core compounds) with potent inhibitory activities (at 3–25 μM) on the motility and development of parasitic stages of H. contortus. An SEM examination of treated H. contortus revealed considerable damage to the cuticle of fourth- but not exsheathed, third-stage larvae; this damage appeared to be consistent with that observed upon treatment with monepantel but not moxidectin (control compounds).

Conclusion

The potency of the three SERMs compared favourably with commercially available anthelmintics, such that they warrant further assessment as nematocides. Future studies could focus on assessing the selectivity of these SERMs to parasites, characterising their target(s) and/or designing analogs that are parasite-specific.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13071-016-1612-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

2-Chloro-1-ferrocenylethanone

The title molecule, [Fe(C5H5)(C7H6ClO)], comprises a ferrocene unit with a 2-chloroethanone substituent on one of the cyclopentadienyl (Cp) rings. The two Cp rings are almost coplanar with an angle of 1.28 (1)° between them. In the crystal, C—H...Cl and C—H...O hydrogen bonds together with an edge-to-face C—H...π contact involving the unsubstituted Cp ring stack molecules along thec-axis direction.

Unexpected reactions of Grignard reagents with selected β-carboalkoxy substituted sulfinate esters

A series of six-membered rings bearing cis oriented vicinal carboxylate and sulfinate esters were treated with Grignard reagents with the intention of transforming them to β-carboalkoxy substituted sulfoxides. The expected outcome did not transpire and instead the substrates demonstrated the capacity to accept 3 equiv. of organometallic agent in an uncontrollable manner. As such, the substrates possessing eclipsing carboxylate and sulfinate esters accepted two organic ligands at the carboxylate functionality and one at the sulfinyl group. When isomer mixtures of sterically encumbered sulfinate esters were reacted, a single sulfoxide stereochemistry resulted. A mechanism involving the intermediacy of a sulfurane is proposed to account for the experimental observations.

Ferrocifen type anti cancer drugs

The mechanisms of action of ferrocifens depend on several features: chemical structures, used concentrations, nature of cancer cells.