Novel pyrrolopyrimidine derivatives induce p53-independent apoptosis via the mitochondrial pathway in colon cancer cells.

A series of novel pyrrolopyrimidine urea derivatives were synthesized and evaluated for their anticancer activity against colon cancer cell lines. Compounds showed the remarkable cytotoxic activity on HCT-116 wt cell line. The most potent compound 4c (IC = 0.14 μM) induced apoptosis in HCT-116 wt and HCT-116 p53-/- cell lines. Otherwise, treatment of HCT-116 BAX-/-BAK-/- cells with compound 4c didn't lead to activation of apoptosis, suggesting that compound 4c induces apoptotic cell death by activating BAX/BAK-dependent pathway. Moreover, while the compound 4c increase the activation of caspase-3 and caspase-9 levels in HCT-116 wt and HCT-116 p53-/- cells, caspase-3 or caspase-9 activation was not observed in HCT-116 BAX-/-BAK-/- cells. In addition, compound 4c induced mitochondrial apoptosis in cells grown as oncospheroids, which better mimic the in vivo milieu of tumors. 4c treatment also activated JNK along with inhibition of prosurvival kinases such as Akt and ERK 1/2 in HCT-116 wt and HCT-116 p53 -/- cells as well as in HCT-116 BAX-/-BAK-/- cells. Notably, our results indicated that compound 4c induced mitochondrial apoptosis through activation p53-independent apoptotic signaling pathways.