Recent anticancer cytotoxic agents.

In spite of the impressive progress in diagnosis, surgery and therapy that occurred since the Sixties, the overall cancer mortality is still high and the medical need is largely unmet. A number of innovative strategies, aimed to target malignant abnormalities of tumor cells are in development and begin to give important results. In alternative, angiogenesis inhibition has been addressed with the aim to limit the tumor ability to grow and metastasize. However, it will likely take some years to fully define the therapeutic role of different innovative drugs. Therefore, cytotoxic drugs will continue to represent a chief part of the therapy in the forthcoming years, possibly in combination with innovative agents addressing molecular targets. Most important traditional chemotherapeutic drugs or investigational anticancer agents were derived from natural sources also through synthetic structural modifications. In the Nineties, taxanes and camptothecins represented important success stories of this approach, while among DNA interacting agents anthracyclines continued to represent a structural platform for discovering new drugs and DNA minor groove binders represented a new field of investigation. Combinatorial chemistry combined with high-throughput screening programs are an important source of totally synthetic new agents, however, it should not be disregarded the fact that nature already performed combinatorial chemistry and leads selection through the ages. New natural or semisynthetic agents acting as tubulin stabilizers or DNA interactive agents of various mechanisms of action are presently investigated and will probably continue to give important contribution to cancer therapy in the near future. In this review, the medicinal chemistry and the development status of these anticancer cytotoxic agents are focused and discussed.

Camptothecin poly[n-(2-hydroxypropyl) methacrylamide] copolymers in antitopoisomerase-I tumor therapy: intratumor release and antitumor efficacy.

Soluble copolymers of camptothecin (CPT), based on poly[N-(2-hydroxypropyl) methacrylamide] (pHPMA), were obtained by conjugation through the degradable spacers -Gly-Phe-Leu-Gly- or -Gly-6-aminohexanoyl-Gly-. We investigated to what extent passive accumulation and retention of hydroxypropyl methacrylamide copolymer of CPT (pHPMA-CPT) in tumors and modulation of the drug release influence efficacy. Release of CPT in vivo was detected by time-resolved phase-shift fluorescence imaging on tumor specimens, based on the evidence that free and bound drug had different fluorescence lifetimes in solution. HT-29 murine specimens, obtained at several times after treatment with (3)H-labeled free CPT, pHPMA-Gly-Phe-Leu-Gly-CPT, or pHPMA-Gly-6-aminohexanoyl-Gly-CPT, were either imaged for time-resolved phase-shift fluorescence or subjected to autoradiography. Phase shifts of CPT conjugates were equal or longer than those of free CPT, indicating the presence of both free and polymer-bound drug in the tumor, in agreement with autoradiograms. pHPMA-Gly-Phe-Leu-Gly-CPT underwent relevant intratumor hydrolysis during the first 24 h, whereas the hydrolysis of pHPMA-Gly-6-aminohexanoyl-Gly-CPT was slow. The latter showed antitumor activity at doses from 10 to 22.5 mg/kg/day against s.c. HT-29, A2780, M14, and A549 s.c. xenografts. Moreover, inhibition of tumor growth lasted for up to 73-88 days, and cures were observed on mice with orthotopic implanted HT-29; pHPMA-Gly-Phe-Leu-Gly-CPT was 2-fold more potent than pHPMA-Gly-6-aminohexanoyl-Gly-CPT but less tolerated. Our data suggest that the efficacy of pHPMA-CPT copolymers is related to their intratumor accumulation, and in vivo properties of releasing CPT by esterolytic and proteolytic degradation.