Department of Biological, Chemical, and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technologies (STEBICEF), University of Palermo, Via Archirafi 32, 90123 Palermo, Italy.
Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences, University of Padova, Via Marzolo 5, 35128 Padova, Italy.
Mar Drugs. 2023 May 4;21(5):288. doi: 10.3390/md21050288.
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the main aggressive types of cancer, characterized by late prognosis and drug resistance. Among the main factors sustaining PDAC progression, the alteration of cell metabolism has emerged to have a key role in PDAC cell proliferation, invasion, and resistance to standard chemotherapeutic agents. Taking into account all these factors and the urgency in evaluating novel options to treat PDAC, in the present work we reported the synthesis of a new series of indolyl-7-azaindolyl triazine compounds inspired by marine bis-indolyl alkaloids. We first assessed the ability of the new triazine compounds to inhibit the enzymatic activity of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinases (PDKs). The results showed that most of derivatives totally inhibit PDK1 and PDK4. Molecular docking analysis was executed to predict the possible binding mode of these derivatives using ligand-based homology modeling technique. Evaluation of the capability of new triazines to inhibit the cell growth in 2D and 3D KRAS-wild-type (BxPC-3) and KRAS-mutant (PSN-1) PDAC cell line, was carried out. The results showed the capacity of the new derivatives to reduce cell growth with a major selectivity against KRAS-mutant PDAC PSN-1 on both cell models. These data demonstrated that the new triazine derivatives target PDK1 enzymatic activity and exhibit cytotoxic effects on 2D and 3D PDAC cell models, thus encouraging further structure manipulation for analogs development against PDAC.
胰腺导管腺癌 (PDAC) 是一种主要侵袭性癌症类型,其特征为预后不良和耐药性。在维持 PDAC 进展的主要因素中,细胞代谢的改变已成为 PDAC 细胞增殖、侵袭和对标准化疗药物耐药的关键因素。考虑到所有这些因素以及迫切需要评估治疗 PDAC 的新方案,在本工作中,我们报告了一系列受海洋双吲哚生物碱启发的新型吲哚-7-氮杂吲哚三嗪化合物的合成。我们首先评估了这些新三嗪化合物抑制丙酮酸脱氢酶激酶 (PDKs) 酶活性的能力。结果表明,大多数衍生物完全抑制 PDK1 和 PDK4。利用基于配体的同源建模技术,进行了分子对接分析,以预测这些衍生物的可能结合模式。评估了新三嗪抑制 KRAS 野生型 (BxPC-3) 和 KRAS 突变型 (PSN-1) PDAC 细胞系在 2D 和 3D 中的细胞生长的能力。结果表明,这些新衍生物具有降低细胞生长的能力,并且对两种细胞模型中的 KRAS 突变型 PDAC PSN-1 具有更大的选择性。这些数据表明,新的三嗪衍生物靶向 PDK1 酶活性,并在 2D 和 3D PDAC 细胞模型上表现出细胞毒性作用,从而鼓励进一步进行结构修饰以开发针对 PDAC 的类似物。