Synthesis and biological evaluation of hybrid acridine-HSP90 ligand conjugates as telomerase inhibitors

The synthesis and biological evaluation of a series of bifunctional acridine-HSP90 inhibitor ligands as telomerase inhibitors is herein described. Four hybrid acridine-HSP90 inhibitor conjugates were prepared using a click-chemistry approach, and subsequently shown to display comparable results to the established telomerase inhibitor BRACO-19 in the TRAP-LIG telomerase assay. The conjugates also demonstrated significant cyctotoxity against a number of cancer cell lines, in the sub-μM range.