Scientists of the Zelinsky Institute continue research on the effective and selective anticancer agents

For many years, cancer has been one of the leading causes of people death both in Russia and around the world. The development of effective and selective anticancer drugs is one of the most important areas of modern science. Cultivated plants of the Apiaceae family, such as dill, parsley, and parsnip, contain a significant amount of various allylpolyalkoxybenzenes, which exhibit a wide range of bioactivities, including antioxidant and anticancer.

Scientists of the Laboratory of Medical Chemistry of the ZIOC are actively conducting research on the synthesis of allylpolyalkoxybenzene derivatives and the study of their biological properties. They hypothesized that the efficacy and selectivity of these molecules in fighting cancer could be enhanced by attaching lipophilic triphenylphosphonium cations to them, which are known for their ability to selectively deliver compounds of interest to the mitochondria. As part of one of their recent studies, chemists have developed a synthetic method for obtaining derivatives of natural allylpolyalkoxybenzenes conjugated with triphenylphosphonium cations. It was shown that the obtained compounds exhibit pronounced cytotoxicity against seven human cancer cell lines, but at the same time do not cause any developmental anomalies in sea urchin embryos. The results of the study have opened new avenues for the further development of new, simple, and effective molecules based on natural products for the treatment of cancer.

Source:

Dmitry V. Tsyganov, Alexander V. Samet, Eugenia A. Silyanova, Vladimir I. Ushkarov, Alexander E. Varakutin, Natalia B. Chernysheva, Roman N. Chuprov-Netochin, Andrey A. Khomutov, Anna S. Volkova, Sergey V. Leonov, Marina N. Semenova, Victor V. Semenov Synthesis and Antiproliferative Activity of Triphenylphosphonium Derivatives of Natural Allylpolyalkoxybenzenes ACS Omega 2022, 7, 3369−3383. DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.1c05515.