SUTAF, a novel β-methoxyacrylate derivative, promotes neurite outgrowth with extracellular signal-regulated kinase and c-jun N-terminal kinase activation.

β-Methoxyacrylate antibiotics are well known to inhibit the fungal and yeast mitochondrial respiratory chain. In addition, β-methoxyacrylates are reported to suppress the proliferation of mammalian cancer cells. Differentiation and cell-cycle arrest are closely related. The cell cycle of proliferating cells is suppressed before differentiation. In this study, we synthesized a β-methoxyacrylate analog and treated neuronal differential model cells with it. We then estimated β-methoxyacrylate's neurotrophic effect by inhibiting cell proliferation so as to orient neuronal differentiation. SUTAF-027-a novel β-methoxyacrylate derivative, arrested the cell cycle and thereby suppressed the proliferation of PC12 rat pheochromocytoma cells and mouse neuroblastoma Neuro2a cells at very low treatment doses, as low as 1nM. However, a single SUTAF-027 treatment did not affect neuritogenesis. Surprisingly, however, co-treatment of SUTAF-027 and nerve growth factor (NGF) significantly augmented the NGF-induced neurite outgrowth of PC12. On the other hand, a single treatment of 1nM SUTAF-027 induced neurite outgrowth in Neuro2a cells. Further signal transduction mechanism studies revealed that SUTAF-027 induced the phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and slight phosphorylation of c-jun N-terminal kinase (JNK). Moreover, inhibition of ERK and JNK blocked SUTAF-027-augmented neurite outgrowth. These results suggested that the novel β-methoxyacrylate analog SUTAF-027 augmented neurite outgrowth by arresting the cell cycle and activating the ERK and JNK pathways.