Investigation of thiolysis of NBD amines for the development of H2S probes and evaluating the stability of NBD dyes.

In order to evaluate the thiolysis of NBD (7-nitro-1,2,3-benzoxadiazole) amines for development of H2S probes, herein we investigated the reactivity and selectivity of a series of NBD amines for the first time. The piperazinyl- and piperidyl-based NBD probes could react efficiently with micromolar H2S in buffer (pH 7.4), while such NBD(S) (nitrobenzothiadiazole) derivatives showed much slow thiolysis even in the presence of millimolar H2S. Low reactivity was also observed for thiolysis of these ethylamino-, ethanolamino- and anilino-based NBD probes. Therefore, almost all NBD amines used in bioimaging should be stable, in consideration of the presence of only micromolar endogenous H2S in vivo. Moreover, the piperazinyl-NBD derivatives could be efficient in the development of fluorescent H2S probes and for directly visualizing H2S by paper-based detection.

Synthesis and in vitro anticancer activity evaluation of novel bioreversible phosphate inositol derivatives.

The chemistry and biology of phosphorylated inositols have become intense areas of research during the last two decades due to their involvement in various cellular signaling processes. However, the metabolic instability by phosphatases or kinases and poor penetration make it difficult to become a drug used in the clinic. The bioreversible protection technique can enhance membrane penetration characteristics and increase the stability of phosphorylated inositols against enzymatic degradation and is applied widely in drug discovery and development. In this paper, we described the design and synthesis of 22 bioreversible phosphotriester inositols, along with the initial antitumor activity results. Most compounds exhibited significant cytotoxic activity against human cancer cell lines A549, MDA-MB-231 and HeLa, but lower cellular toxicity on normal cell MCF10A in comparison with Cisplatin. These compounds can be used as probes to study the mechanism of intracellular signal transduction mediated by phosphate inositol or as leads of phosphate inositol drugs in the clinic.

Synthesis and antitumor activity of inositol phosphotriester analogues.

Inositol phosphates, as important second messengers of signal transduction, regulate many biological functions. However, cell penetration and phospholipase stability could be two main issues faced by inositol phosphate analogues used as lead compounds for drug discovery. Inositol phosphotriester analogues could be more beneficial to diffuse across plasma membrane. In this paper, we describe the design and synthesis of a series of inositol phosphotriester analogues based on phosphatidylinositol, along with the initial antitumor activity analysis. Several compounds exhibited good cytotoxic activity against human cancer cell lines A549, HepG2, MDA-MB-231 and HeLa, especially compound 33 was cytotoxic against all the four cancer cell lines with good IC(50) values.