Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of new series of hexahydroquinoline and fused quinoline derivatives as potent inhibitors of wild-type EGFR and mutant EGFR (L858R and T790M).

New series of hexahydroquinoline and fused quinoline derivatives were designed and synthesized. The thirty seven new compounds were screened for in vitro antitumor activity against HepG2, HCT-116 and MCF-7 cancer cells. Results indicated that compounds 2e, 2h, 5b, 5c, 6a, 7d and 9b have the strongest potency against the three cancer cells, and they were further screened for in vitro cytotoxicity against A431 and H1975 cancer cells, as well as WI38 and WISH normal cells. Results revealed that 7d potently inhibited the growth of H1975 cells harboring EGFRT790M mutation (IC50 = 1.32 ± 0.2 µM) over A431 cells overexpressing EGFRWT (IC50 = 4.96 ± 0.3 µM). Moreover, the seven compounds displayed low cytotoxicity against the tested normal cells. The seven potent antitumor compounds were examined for their ability to inhibit the activity of EGFRWT. The attained data manifested that 7d has remarkable EGFRWT inhibitory activity (IC50 = 0.083 ± 0.002 µM) compared to erlotinib (IC50 = 0.067 ± 0.002 µM). Compound 7d was further studied for its enzymatic inhibitory activity against other eight human kinases, and it displayed outstanding inhibitory activity against EGFRL858R and EGFRT790M mutants (IC50 = 0.053 ± 0.002, 0.026 ± 0.001 µM, respectively), as well as JAK3 (IC50 = 0.069 ± 0.003 µM). Analysis of cell cycle evidenced that 7d induces cell cycle arrest in G2/M and pre-G1 phases in the tested cancer cells. In addition, cancer cell death induced by 7d was proved to take place via apoptosis supported by elevated Bax/Bcl-2 ratio in the tested cancer cells. Moreover, docking results confirmed the good binding interactions of 7d with EGFRWT, EGFRL858R, EGFRT790M and JAK3, which came in agreement with the results of in vitro enzyme assay. Further, 7d is predicted to have good oral absorption, good drug-likeness properties and low toxicity risks in human.

1,4,5,6,7,8-Hexahydroquinolines and 5,6,7,8-tetrahydronaphthalenes: A new class of antitumor agents targeting the colchicine binding site of tubulin.

New series of 2-amino-1,4,5,6,7,8-hexahydroquinoline-3-carbonitriles 3a,b and 2-amino-5,6,7,8-tetrahydronaphthalene-1,3-dicarbonitriles 4a-h were synthesized and evaluated for their antitumor activity. In vitro antitumor screening of the new members against HepG2, HCT-116 and MCF-7 cancer cells showed that the tetrahydronaphthalene-1,3-dicarbonitrile 4c has the highest potency against the three tested cancer cells (IC50 = 6.02, 8.45 and 6.28 µM, respectively). In addition, 4c displayed low cytotoxicity against WI38 and WISH normal cells (IC50 = 51.78 and 42.36 µM, respectively), and it might be utilized as a potent and selective antitumor agent. Compound 4c was further studied for its effect on tubulin polymerization, different phases of cell cycle, apoptosis and caspases 3/9 levels. Results revealed that analog 4c has good tubulin polymerization inhibitory activity (IC50 = 3.64 µM). Additionally, it induced significant accumulation of the tested cancer cells in G2/M phase, and induced cell death primarily via apoptosis. Besides, it showed evident increase in caspase-3 level in HepG2 and HCT-116 cells, and caspase-9 level in MCF-7 cells. Further, docking studies proved the exact fit of 4c into the colchicine binding site of tubulin.

Synthesis of α-indolylacrylates as potential anticancer agents using a Brønsted acid ionic liquid catalyst and the butyl acetate solvent.

In this study, new α-indolylacrylate derivatives were synthesized by the reaction of 2-substituted indoles with various pyruvates using a Brønsted acid ionic liquid catalyst in butyl acetate solvent. This is the first report on the application of pyruvate compounds for the synthesis of indolylacrylates. The acrylate derivatives could be obtained in good to excellent yields. A preliminary biological evaluation revealed their promising anticancer activity (IC50 = 9.73 µM for the compound 4l) and indicated that both the indole core and the acrylate moieties are promising for the development of novel anticancer drugs. The Lipinski's rule and Veber's parameters were assessed for the newly synthesized derivatives.

Pooled library screening with multiplexed Cpf1 library.

Capitalizing on the inherent multiplexing capability of AsCpf1, we developed a multiplexed, high-throughput screening strategy that minimizes library size without sacrificing gene targeting efficiency. We demonstrated that AsCpf1 can be used for functional genomics screenings and that an AsCpf1-based multiplexed library performs similarly as compared to currently available monocistronic CRISPR/Cas9 libraries, with only one vector required for each gene. We construct the smallest whole-genome CRISPR knock-out library, Mini-human, for the human genome (n = 17,032 constructs targeting 16,977 protein-coding genes), which performs favorably compared to conventional Cas9 libraries.