Design, synthesis, bioevaluation of LFC- and PA-tethered anthraquinone analogues of mitoxantrone

Abstract The clinical application of mitoxantrone (MTZ), a DNA-intercalating topoisomerase II (topo II) poison, has been largely limited by the risk of secondary tumor and severe myelosuppression. To develop more effective antineoplastic agents with less toxicity, a spectrum of anthraquinone analogues of MTZ were herein designed and synthesized based on the concept of ‘enhancing protein backbone-binding’, by rationally introducing hydrophobic long fatty acid chain (LFC) and hydrophilic polyamine (PA) components, which are reported to function as effective tumor-targeting tethers. The SAR exploration implicated that in our synthesized molecules, the introduction of both lipophilic LFC and hydrophilic PA fragment is plausibly beneficial to the anti-proliferative potency, with a certain degree of selectivity between the hematopoietic and solid malignant cells, which still need to be further accurately confirmed. Meanwhile, many compounds, the LFC-tethered 5d2 and PA-bridged 8c in particular, provided satisfactory topo IIα inhibition by acting as DNA non-intercalators, largely attributable to their strong adaptability to three binding regions (pocket I, II and III) and also the generated H-bonding interactions between inhibitors and key residues of topo IIα. In brief, 5d2 and 8c might be promising hits for further exploitation of more potent topo IIα inhibitors.