Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters
Oxindole-based intraocular pressure reducing agents
a
b
a
Ekaterina V. Zaryanova a, , Nataly A. Lozinskaya , Olga V. Beznos , Maria S. Volkova ,
⇑
Nataly B. Chesnokova b, Nikolay S. Zefirov a
a Department of Chemistry, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
b Federal State Institute ‘‘Helmholtz Moscow Research Institute of Eye Diseases” of the Russian Federation Ministry of Health, Moscow, Russia
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
The study represents the new findings at the crossroads of chemistry and medicine, particularly between
medicinal and organic chemistry and ophthalmology. In this work we describe how the chemical reactiv-
ity of indolinone scaffold may be used to create small molecule ligands with strong biological response
comparable with and larger than that of endogenous hormone. The synthesis of oxindole-based mela-
tonin and 5-methoxycarbonylamino-N-acetyltryptamine (5-MCA-NAT) analogues was proposed and
their ability to influence intraocular pressure (IOP) was studied in vivo. Time-dependent study revealed
the prolonged effect (more than 6 h) of the lead-compound. This effect in combination with high IOP
reducing effect (41 6%) in low concentrations of the active compound (0.1 wt%) and with high water
solubility represents a great potential of low-cost oxindole derivatives as potent antiglaucoma agents.
Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Received 1 April 2017
Revised 1 June 2017
Accepted 25 June 2017
Available online xxxx
Keywords:
Melatonin
Intraocular pressure
Oxindole derivatives
Glaucoma treatment
Introduction
to exhibit antioxidative and neuroprotective properties, which
are most likely to associate with the MT3-subtype receptor (qui-
According to the World Health Organization, about 65% of all
people who are visually impaired are aged 50 and older, while this
age group comprises about 20% of the world’s population. The
major causes of blindness are uncorrected refractive errors (myo-
pia, hyperopia or astigmatism), unoperated cataract, and glau-
coma. The most disruptive symptom of glaucoma is increased
intraocular pressure (IOP). It leads to disorders of the visual system
and optic atrophy.1 The most common treatment for glaucoma is
the application of IOP-lowering drugs. There are a lot of types of
agents, which can reduce the intraocular pressure, such as miotics,
prostaglandin analogues and carbonic anhydrase inhibitors1,2 and
their different formulations, including solutions and nanoparti-
cles.2 Nowadays the drug combination therapy is also applied.2
The mechanisms of IOP reduction are different for different drug
types; the value of biological effect varies from 15 to 35%. More-
over, side effects often come along with the desired one, thus the
lack of selective and effective drug for glaucoma treatment is the
reason for further research.
none reductase 2, QR2, NQO2) inhibition.3–5
There are several available MT3-selective ligands, including the
potent antidepressant agent 5-methoxycarbonylamino-N-acetyl-
tryptamine (MCA-NAT), which has a high affinity (Ki = 65 nM,
IC50 = 58 nM2) for the MT3 receptor.6,7 MCA-NAT is also known
to significantly decrease IOP in a dose-dependent manner (max
45%).8,9 Despite effective lowering of IOP, 5-MCA-NAT is not used
as an antiglaucoma agent due probably to its low solubility in
water.5
The oxindole nucleus was selected as a scaffold because of its
planar structure close to indole ring of melatonin, greater meta-
bolic resistance, stability during synthetic experiments allowing
the modification of such a central fragment in different ways and
cost effectiveness of the synthetic procedures and starting materi-
als. Moreover our research group previously demonstrated that
indolinone-based melatonin and MCA-NAT analogues have a good
affinity for quinone reductase 2.6 According to the data of X-ray
diffraction, these compounds can be strongly bound to QR2
(Fig. 1, Table 1).
Meanwhile, new targets for the treatment of glaucoma have
been recently found. Melatonin is known to reduce IOP and also
Taking into account a great potential of ligands for melatonin-
binding sites, the development of a general approach to the syn-
thesis of such ligands is an important problem. Recently, we
described the synthesis of melatonin receptor ligands and demon-
strated their high affinity for MT3 melatonin receptors.6 On the
basis of the analysis of X-ray crystal structures of MT3 receptor/
Abbreviations: IOP, intraocular pressure; QR2, NQO2, quinone reductase 2;
MCA-NAT, 5-MCA-NAT - 5-methoxycarbonylamino-N-acetyltryptamine.
⇑
Corresponding author.
0960-894X/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.