Lathyrol and epoxylathyrol derivatives: Modulation of Cdr1p and Mdr1p drug-efflux transporters of Candida albicans in Saccharomyces cerevisiae model

Abstract Macrocyclic diterpenes were previously found to be able to modulate the efflux pump activity of Candida albicans multidrug transporters. Most of these compounds were jatrophanes, but only a few number of lathyrane-type diterpenes was evaluated. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the ability of nineteen structurally-related lathyrane diterpenes ( 1 – 19 ) to overcome the drug-efflux activity of Cdr1p and Mdr1p transporters of C. albicans , and get some insights on their structure-activity relationships. The transport assay was performed by monitoring Nile Red (NR) efflux in a Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain overexpressing the referred efflux pumps from C. albicans . Moreover, a chemosensitization assay was performed in order to evaluate the type of interaction between the inhibitory compounds and the antifungal drug fluconazole. Compounds 1 – 13 were previously isolated from Euphorbia boetica or obtained by derivatization, and compounds 14 – 19 were prepared by chemical transformations of compound 4 . In the transport assays, compounds 14 – 19 revealed the strongest inhibitory activity of the Cdr1p efflux pump, ranging from 65 to 85%. Concerning Mdr1p efflux pump, the most active compounds were 1 , 3 , 6 , 8 , and 12 (75–85%). When used in combination with fluconazole, epoxyboetirane K ( 2 ) and euphoboetirane N ( 18 ) revealed synergistic effects in the AD-CDR1 yeast strain, overexpressing the Cdr1p transporter, through their ability to reduce the effective concentration of the antifungal drug by 23- and 52-fold, respectively.