Li Guan,Shengjie Zhang,Pengfei Song,Yanxin Xia,Xinle Zheng,Weize Li
The inhibition of angiogenesis has been considered as an attractive method for the discovery of potential anti-cancer drugs. Herein, we report our new synthesized bibenzyl compound Ae had potent anti-angiogenic activity(the lowest effective concentration is to 0.62–1.25 μM) in zebrafish in vivo and showed a concentration-dependent inhibition of inter-segmental blood vessels (ISVs) compared to control. Further, Ae exhibited the obvious inhibitory activity of proliferation, migration, invasion and tube formation in HUVEC cells in vitro . Moreover, qRT-PCR analysis revealed that the anti-angiogenic activity of compound Ae is connected with the ang-2 , tek in ANGPT-TEK pathway and the kdr, kdrl signaling axle in VEGF-VEGFR pathway. Molecular docking studies revealed that compound Ae had an interaction with the angiopoietin-2 receptor(TEK) and VEGFR2. Additionally, analysis of the ADMET prediction data indicated that compound Ae possessed favorable physicochemical properties, drug-likeness, and synthetic accessibility. In conclusion, compound Ae had remarkable anti-angiogenic activity and could be served as an candidate for cancer therapy.
More and more evidence suggested that bio-metals including iron, zinc and copper play an important role in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Metal chelation agents may play an important role through promoting the metal homeostasis for AD treatment. In this study, UA (usnic acid), a natural product with antioxidant activity and metal chelation sites was selected as a lead compound. Different types of tertiary amine groups were introduced to synthesize four UA derivatives 1–4 as metal chelators and cholinesterase inhibitors since tertiary amine moiety was the key pharmacophore to inhibit cholinesterase. And the related activities such as antioxidant, anti-cholinesterase and metal chelation were evaluated. Results showed that 1–4 displayed excellent anti-oxidant activity, with lowest IC 50 of 0.433 µM for ·OH scavenging ability and 8.808 µM for ·O 2 − scavenging ability. The mechanisms of anti-oxidant activities were furtherly studied by cyclic voltammetry. Besides, 1–4 also showed good anti-cholinesterase activities with lowest IC 50 of 0.269 µM for acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and 0.361 µM for butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE). The results of molecular docking with AChE and BuChE were consistent with the experimental results. 1–4 displayed obvious chelating abilities with Cu(II) and Fe(III) by UV–vis spectra analysis and the metal complexes also showed good anti-AD activities. Interestingly, single crystal of Cu(II) complex of the hydrolyzed mono-substituted ligand was obtained which further substantiated the metal binding ability and provided clues to the anti-AD activities of the metal complex. Meanwhile, hydrolysis ratio of 4 was also tested by HPLC. Finally, BBB permeability of 1–4 was acceptable by ADMET prediction. Overall, these findings demonstrated that compounds 1–4 might be considered as potential candidates in the anti-AD therapy.