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  • Design, Synthesis, and Eval...
    Peng, Wang; Sun, Zhi-Yin; Zhang, Qi; Cheng, Sui-Qi; Wang, Shi-Ke; Wang, Xiao-Na; Kuang, Guo-Tao; Su, Xiao-Xuan; Tan, Jia-Heng; Huang, Zhi-Shu; Ou, Tian-Miao

    Journal of medicinal chemistry, 08/2018, Volume: 61, Issue: 15
    Journal Article

    The human proto-oncogene neuroblastoma RAS (NRAS) contains a guanine-rich sequence in the 5′-untranslated regions (5′-UTR) of the mRNA that could form an RNA G-quadruplex structure. This structure acts as a repressor for NRAS translation and could be a potential target for anticancer drugs. Our previous studies found an effective scaffold, the quindoline scaffold, for binding and stabilizing the DNA G-quadruplex structures. Here, on the basis of the previous studies and reported RNA-specific probes, a series of novel p-(methylthio)­styryl substituted quindoline (MSQ) derivatives were designed, synthesized, and evaluated as NRAS RNA G-quadruplex ligands. Panels of experiments turned out that the introduction of p-(methylthio)­styryl side chain could enhance the specific binding to the NRAS RNA G-quadruplex. One of the hits, 4a-10, showed strong stabilizing activity on the G-quadruplex and subsequently repressed NRAS’s translation and inhibited tumor cells proliferation. Our finding provided a novel strategy to discover novel NRAS repressors by specifically binding to the RNA G-quadruplex in the 5′-UTR of mRNA.