Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters
Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of new inhibitors
of Bax/Bcl-xL interaction in cancer cells
Duc Duy Vo a, Fabien Gautier b,c,d, Sophie Barillé-Nion b, Philippe Juin b,c, Nicolas Levoin e, René Grée a,
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a Université de Rennes 1, Institut des Sciences Chimiques de Rennes, CNRS UMR 6226, Avenue du Général Leclerc, 35042 Rennes Cedex, France
b UMR 892 INSERM/6299 CNRS/Université de Nantes, Team 8 ‘‘Cell survival and tumor escape in breast cancer’’, Institut de Recherche Thérapeutique de l’Université de Nantes, 8 quai
Moncousu, BP 70721, 44007 Nantes Cedex 1, France
c Institut de Cancérologie de l’Ouest, Centre de Lutte contre le Cancer René Gauducheau, Boulevard Jacques Monod, 44805 Saint Herblain-Nantes Cedex, France
d Plateforme IMPACTÒ, Biogenouest Institut de Recherche Thérapeutique de l’Université de Nantes, 8 quai Moncousu, BP 70721, 44007 Nantes Cedex 1, France
e Bioprojet-Biotech, 4 rue du Chesnay Beauregard, BP 96205, 35762 Saint Grégoire, France
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
We describe the synthesis of a series of new molecules containing phenol and triazoles moieties, com-
pounds which have been evaluated for their ability to inhibit Bax/Bcl-xL interactions in cancer cells, by
using BRET assays, and to induce cell death. Several derivatives exhibit a very promising activity, being
more potent than the reference compounds acylpyrogallol A and ABT-737. These preliminary results
demonstrate that derivatives of this family can be attractive to develop new molecules with potent anti-
cancer activity.
Received 26 December 2013
Revised 11 February 2014
Accepted 13 February 2014
Available online 24 February 2014
Keywords:
Triazoles
Cancer
Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Apoptosis
Bcl-xL
Bax
Polyphenol
BRET
Protein protein interactions (PPIs) play critical roles in numer-
ous biological processes. Life death decisions are, in particular, reg-
ulated by a network of PPIs among Bcl-2 family members, with
individual anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 homologues (such as Bcl-2, Bcl-xL,
Mcl-1. . .) binding to, and inhibiting, pro-apoptotic counterparts
(the effector multi-domain proteins Bax/Bak and their upstream
regulators, BH3-only proteins such as Bim, Bid, Puma, Bad,
Noxa. . .). This so called Bcl-2 network is often dysregulated in can-
cer cells, leading to aberrant survival. Developing small molecule
inhibitors of PPIs engaged by Bcl-2 homologues is thus of major
therapeutic interest, as their use may help override cancer cell out-
growth by promoting apoptosis. Numerous compounds have been
developed on that basis and some have entered clinical trials.1
As part of our programme towards the research of new pro-
apoptotic anti cancer agents,2 we became interested in acylpyrro-
gallol A, which has been reported by the group of Wang as a potent
inhibitor of Bcl-2.3 Based on this core structure, we have first dem-
onstrated that it is also an inhibitor of Bcl-xL and that the phenol
group in position 3 played a key role for the biological activities
in these series. Further, introduction of a p-fluorobenzyl group on
the right part of the molecule resulted in a significant improve-
ment of activity (triazole B)4 Then, we explored the possibility of
replacing the aromatic group by 6-membered heteroaromatic
structures (series C) or 5-membered derivatives (triazoles series
D). In latter case in particular, some potent derivatives have been
discovered.5 An important point to notice is that most of the active
compounds in these series of molecules (such as TW 37, TM
179,. . .) have, like first model A, a carbonyl group vicinal to the
phenolic core. Further, molecular docking studies have identified
relevant interactions of latter carbonyl group inside the binding
pockets of the proteins.3,6 On the other hand, it is known that
sp2-hybridized nitrogen atoms are able to make stronger hydrogen
bond (HB) interactions that oxygen.7 Therefore, we tried to exploit
this advantage by designing new target molecules (Fig. 1) where
the benzophenone carbonyl group has been replaced by a nitrogen
isostere. As first representative examples, we selected triazole
derivatives (series E) since this type of heterocycle has proved
already to be very versatile in bioorganic and medicinal chemistry.
The synthesis of these new molecules has been performed by using
simple and efficient methods. We then used the BRET (Biolumines-
cence Resonance Energy Transfer) technique to monitor the
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Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 02 23 23 57 15; fax: +33 02 23 23 69 78.
0960-894X/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.