Epigenetic targeting of cancer is a recent effort to manipulate the gene without destroying the genetic material. Lysine-specific demethylase 1 (LSD1) is one of the enzymes associated with the ...chromatin for post-translational modifications, where it demethylates lysine amino acid in the chromatin H3 tail. Many studies showed that inhibiting LSD1 could potentially be used to treat cancer epigenetically. LSD1 is associated with its corepressor protein CoREST, and it uses tetrahydrofolate as a co-factor to accept CH2 from the demethylation process. In this study, the co-crystallized co-factor tetrahydrofolate was utilized to determine possible binding regions in the active center of the LSD1/CoREST complex. Also, the flexibility of the complex has been investigated by molecular dynamics simulation and subsequent analysis by clustering and principal component analysis. This research supported other studies and showed that LSD1/CoREST complex exists in two main conformational structures: open and closed. Furthermore, this study showed that tetrahydrofolate stably binds to the LSD1/CoREST complex, in its open conformation, at its entrance. It then binds to the core of the complex, inducing the closed conformation. Furthermore, the interactions of tetrahydrofolate to these two binding regions and the corresponding binding mode of tetrahydrofolate were investigated to be used in structure-based drug design.
Plant polyphenols have received considerable attention in recent years due to their ability to undergo oxidation-triggered self-polymerization, forming biocompatible versatile coatings and templated ...nanoparticles (NPs) that can be leveraged for a variety of biomedical applications. Here we show for the first time that untemplated NPs can be conveniently synthesized from the abundant plant polyphenol quercetin (QCT) simply by incubation with an oxidizing agent in a universal organic solvent, followed by self-assembly upon gradual addition of water. The process yielded NPs of around 180-200 nm in size with a range of colors that resembled light to medium-brown skin tones. The NPs were characterized by UV-Vis, FT-IR, and
H-NMR spectroscopy and by dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscopy to understand their physicochemical properties. Antioxidant and cell viability assays were also conducted to demonstrate the NPs' free-radical scavenging activity and biocompatibility, altogether providing valuable insights into the structure and function of this emerging class of nanomaterials to guide future biomedical applications.
Twenty-five structurally diverse compounds have been tested
for their pancreatic lipase (PL) inhibitory activity. Despite the diversity of tested compounds, the relationship comprising structural ...attributes of the compounds could be established to correlate with the observed inhibitory activity. Compounds that exerted inhibitory action through surface activity were of different profile from the rest of compounds. When co-incubated with orlistat (OsT), important synergistic effects for some compounds (orphenadrine, gliclazide, cefuroxime and sulfacetamide) were revealed, while antagonistic effects were demonstrated for others (camphor sulfonic acid and dinitro salicylic acid). Docking studies for the most active molecules were performed and molecular interaction forces with the PL active site were identified. The results suggested co-binding of OsT along with the other inhibitor in the binding site in cases of synergistic effect but not in the case of antagonistic effect. These results were additionally supported by affinity capillary electrophoresis. In conclusion, synergistic lipase inhibitory activity between OsT and some other pharmaceutical compounds was demonstrated for the first time, which might help improve the pharmacological effect of OsT.
Background
Breast cancer is one of the most lethal types of cancer in women worldwide. The human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) is considered as a validated target in breast cancer ...therapy. Previously, we have used quantitative structure activity relationship QSAR equations and their associated pharmacophore models to screen for new promising HER2 structurally diverse inhibitory leads which were tested against HER2-overexpressing SKOV3 ovarian cancer cell line.
Objective
In this study, we sought to explore the effect of most active ligands against different normal and breast cancer cell lines that represent different breast cancer subtypes with distinguished expression levels in HER2 and HER1.
Methods
We have tested the promising compounds against SKBR3, MDA-MB-231, MCF7, human fibroblast, and MCF10 cell lines. To understand the inhibitory effects of the active ligands against HER2 over expressed breast cancer cell lines, all inhibitors and the control compound, lapatinib, were docked into the active site of HER2 enzyme performed using Ligand Fit docking engine and PMF scoring function.
Results
Five ligands exhibited promising results with relatively low IC
50
values on cells that amplify HER2 and high IC
50
on those that do not express such a receptor. The most potent compound (compound 13) showed an IC
50
of 0.046 µM. To test their toxicity against normal cells, the active compounds were tested against both normal fibroblast and normal breast cancer cell MCF-10 and relatively high IC
50
values were scored. The IC
50
values on HER2 over-expressed breast cancer and normal fibroblast cells provided a promising safety index. Docking results showed the highest similarity in the binding site between the most active ligand and the lapatinib.
Conclusion
Our pharmacophore model resulted in a high potent ligand that shows high potency against HER2 positive breast cancer and relatively low toxicity towards the normal human cells.
Graphic abstract
Plant polyphenols have attracted attention in recent years due to their ability to undergo oxidative coupling reactions enabled by the presence of multiple phenolic hydroxyl groups, forming ...chemically versatile coatings and biocompatible nanoparticles (NPs) for various applications. The aim of this study was to investigate whether coffee bean aqueous extracts, which are known to be rich in polyphenols, could serve as a natural source of NP building blocks. Extracts were prepared by heating ground Arabica beans of varying roasting degrees in water with or without the addition of sodium metaperiodate or copper sulfate as an oxidizing agent, followed by filtration. NP formation was verified by dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscopy, which revealed the presence of nano-sized particles with varying sizes and polydispersities as a function of the coffee type and oxidizing agent used. NP colors ranged from light to medium to dark brown, and particle sizes were between 44 and 250 nm with relatively low polydispersity indices. In vitro antioxidant assays showed that oxidizing agent-treated coffee NPs had lower antioxidant potency compared to air-oxidized NPs, but the free-radical scavenging activity was still retained. Coffee NPs exhibited no antimicrobial activity against common bacterial and fungal strains. Cell viability assays demonstrated that the NPs were biocompatible in human dermal fibroblasts, while exhibiting antiproliferative activity against MCF7 breast cancer cells, particularly copper sulfate-oxidized NPs. This study presents a facile and economical method to produce template-free antioxidant NPs that may be explored for various applications such as drug delivery and cosmetics.
Three Schiff base ligands, NQ, CQ and HQ, were prepared from the reaction of quinoline-3-carbohydrazide with 2-nitrobenzaldehyde, 2-chlorobenzaldehyde and 2,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde, respectively, and ...were investigated for their coordination to Cu (II), Ni(II), Co(II), Cd(II), Cr(III) and Fe(III) chlorides. The NQ preparation and the X-ray structure of NQ and CQ, as well as the transition metal complexes of NQ, CQ and HQ, were reported for the first time. FTIR, 1H-NMR, magnetic susceptibility and elemental analysis were used to study the coordination of ligands to the metal ions. Based on the magnetic susceptibility and elemental analysis results, octahedral structures of the complexes such as CuL2Cl(OH), FeL2Cl2(OH) and CoL2Cl(OH) were proposed for L = NQ, CQ and HQ. The relatively large Cd(II) exhibited CdL3(OH)2. The FTIR study revealed that NQ and CQ are coordinated to the metal ions via azomethine nitrogen and carbonyl oxygen while HQ through azomethine nitrogen and phenolic oxygen. Despite the high solvation power of DMSO solvent in 1H-NMR experiments, the azomethine HC=N peak at 9.3 ppm is the most affected by complexation with metal ions. On the other hand, quinoline nitrogen seems to be a weaker coordinating site than the azomethine nitrogen. The HQ ligand, containing phenolic groups, and its complexes with Cu and Ni were found to have inhibitory effects on human breast adenocarcinoma MCF-7 and human chronic myelogenous leukemia K562. Nevertheless, metal ions did not exhibit a significant synergistic effect on the antiproliferative activity of the ligands investigated.
Copper Adsorption on Chitosan-Derived Schiff Bases Zalloum, Hiba M.; Al-Qodah, Zakaria; Mubarak, Mohammad S.
Journal of macromolecular science. Part A, Pure and applied chemistry,
01/2009, Volume:
46, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The adsorption of Cu(II) ions onto the chitosan derived Schiff bases obtained from the condensation of chitosan with salicyaldehyde (polymer I), 2,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde (polymer II) and with ...4-(diethylamino) salicyaldehyde (polymer III) in aqueous solutions was investigated. Batch adsorption experiments were carried out as a function of contact time, pH, and polymer mass. The amount of metal-ion uptake of the polymers was determined by using atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) and the highest Cu(II) ions uptake was achieved at pH 7.0 and by using sodium perchlorate as an ionic strength adjuster for polymers I, II, and III. The isothermal behavior and the kinetics of adsorption of Cu(II) ions on these polymers with respect to the initial mass of the polymer and temperature were also investigated; adsorption isothermal equilibrium data could be clearly explained by the Langmuir equation. The experimental data of the adsorption equilibrium from Cu(II) solution correlates well with the Langmuir isotherm equation.
Fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase – hereafter abbreviated as FBPase has been recently implicated in diabetes prompting several attempts to discover and optimize new FBPase inhibitors. Toward this end we ...explored the pharmacophoric space of 136 FBPase inhibitors using three diverse sets of inhibitors. This identified 520 pharmacophores that were subsequently clustered into 104 groups. Cluster centers were evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves analysis and correlation with bioactivities of collected compounds. Pharmacophore model Hypo1/7 illustrated the best combination of classification power (ROC-AUC) and correlation with bioactivity. Two other pharmacophores (Hypo2/1 and Hypo2/6) were found to be mergeable and their combined model (Hypo2-1/2-6) illustrated excellent ROC performance. We employed Hypo1/7 and Hypo2-1/2-6 models to screen the National Cancer Institute (NCI) list of compounds. In silico mining identified 18 FBPase inhibitors out of which six were of sub-micromolar IC50 values.
Display omitted
► Pharmacophoric space of 136 fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase inhibitors (FBPase) was explored. ► Two pharmacophore models, Hypo1/7 and Hypo2-1/2-6, illustrated the best performance. ► Screening of a National Cancer Institute list and in silico mining identified 18 FBPase inhibitors. ► Six compounds of the investigated list have sub-micromolar IC50 values.
P-glycoprotein (Pgp) is implicated in multiple drug resistance (MDR) exhibited by several types of cancer against a multitude of anticancer chemotherapeutic agents. This problem prompted several ...research groups to search for effective P-gp inhibitors. Cyclosporine A (CsA), aureobasidin A (AbA) and related analogues were reported to possess potent inhibitory actions against Pgp. In this work we employed receptor surface analysis (RSA) to construct two satisfactory receptor surface models (RSMs) for cyclosporine- and aureobasidin-based Pgp inhibitors. These pseudoreceptors were combined to achieve satisfactory three-dimensional quantitative structure activity relationship (3D-QSAR) for 68 different cyclosporine and aureobasidin derivatives. Upon validation against an external set of 16 randomly selected Pgp inhibitors, the optimal 3D-QSAR was found to be self-consistent and predictive (
r
LOO
2
=
0.673
,
r
PRESS
2
=
0.600
). The resulting 3D-QSAR was employed to probe the structural factors that control the inhibitory activities of cyclosporine and aureobasidin analogues against Pgp.