Rihui Cao

β-Carboline Alkaloids: Biochemical and Pharmacological Functions

beta-Carboline alkaloids are a large group of natural and synthetic indole alkaloids with different degrees of aromaticity, some of which are widely distributed in nature, including various plants, foodstuffs, marine creatures, insects, mammalians as well as human tissues and body fluids. These compounds are of great interest due to their diverse biological activities. Particularly, these compounds have been shown to intercalate into DNA, to inhibit CDK, Topisomerase, and monoamine oxidase, and to interact with benzodiazepine receptors and 5-hydroxy serotonin receptors. Furthermore, these chemicals also demonstrated a broad spectrum of pharmacological properties including sedative, anxiolytic, hypnotic, anticonvulsant, antitumor, antiviral, antiparasitic as well as antimicrobial activities. In this review, we summerized the biochemical and pharmacological functions of beta-carboline alkaloids.

Synthesis and biological evaluation of novel 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde derivatives as tyrosinase inhibitors.

A series of novel 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde derivatives were synthesized and their inhibitory effects on the diphenolase activity of mushroom tyrosinase were investigated. Most of target compounds had more potent inhibitory activities than the parent compound 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde (IC(50)=1.22 mM). Interestingly, compound 3c bearing a dimethoxyl phosphate was found to be the most potent inhibitor with IC(50) value of 0.059 mM. The inhibition kinetics analyzed by Lineweaver-Burk plots revealed that compound 3c was a non-competitive inhibitor (K(I)=0.0368 mM). In particular, compound 3c showed no side effects at dose of 1600 mg/kg in mice. These results suggested that such compounds might be served as lead compounds for further designing new potential tyrosinase inhibitors.

DH334, a β-carboline anti-cancer drug, Inhibits the CDK activity of budding yeast

The β-carboline alkaloids present in medicinal plants, such as Peganum harmala and Eurycoma longifolia, have recently drawn attention due to their antitumor activities. Further mechanistic studies indicate that β-carboline derivatives inhibit DNA topoisomerases and interfere with DNA synthesis. Moreover, some β-carboline compounds are specific inhibitors of cyclin dependent kinases (CDKs). In this study we used budding yeast as a model system to investigate the antitumor mechanism of β-carboline drugs. We found that DH334, a β-carboline derivative, inhibits the growth of budding yeast. Strikingly, deletion of SIC1, which encodes the budding yeast CDK inhibitor, results in resistance to DH334. In contrast, yeast cells defective for Sic1 degradation exhibit more pronounced sensitivity to DH334. The presence of DH334 causes accumulation of yeast cells in G1 phase, indicating that DH334 blocks cell cycle initiation. We further demonstrated that DH334 inhibits CDK activity as indicated by the decreased phosphorylation of a CDK substrate. All these data suggest that the inhibition of CDK contributes to the toxicity of β-carboline derivatives to budding yeast. DH334 also inhibits the kinase activity of Cdk2/CyclinA in vitro. Therefore, we speculate that the antitumor activity of β-carboline drugs could be attributable to their inhibition of CDK.

Inhibitory effects of 5-benzylidene barbiturate derivatives on mushroom tyrosinase and their antibacterial activities

A series of novel 5-benzylidene barbiturate and thiobarbiturate derivatives were synthesized and evaluated as tyrosinase inhibitors and antibacterial agents. The results demonstrated that some compounds had more potent inhibitory activities than the parent compound 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde (IC(50)=1.22 mM). Particularly, compounds 1a and 2a were found to be the most potent inhibitors with IC(50) value of 13.98 microM and 14.49 microM, respectively. The inhibition mechanism study revealed that these compounds were irreversible inhibitors. The circular dichroism spectra indicated that these compounds induced conformational changes of mushroom tyrosinase upon binding. In addition, these compounds exhibited selectively antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus. All these results suggested that further development of such compounds may be of interest.

A class of potent tyrosinase inhibitors: alkylidenethiosemicarbazide compounds.

A series of alkylidenethiosemicarbazide compounds were synthesized and their inhibitory effects on the diphenolase activity of mushroom tyrosinase were evaluated. The results showed that most of the synthesized compounds exhibited significant inhibitory activities. Especially, compound 1f was found to be the most potent inhibitor with IC(50) value of 0.086 microM, suggesting that further development of such compounds may be of interest.

Design, synthesis and 3D-QSAR of β-carboline derivatives as potent antitumor agents

In a continuing effort to develop novel beta-carbolines endowed with better pharmacological profiles, a series of beta-carboline derivatives were designed and synthesized based on the previously developed SARs. Cytotoxicities in vitro of these compounds against a panel of human tumor cell lines were also investigated. The results demonstrated that the N2-benzylated beta-carbolinium bromides 56-60 represented the most potent compounds with IC50 values lower than 10 microM. The application of 3D-QSAR to these compounds explored the structural basis for their biological activities. CoMFA (q2=0.513, r2=0.862) and CoMSIA (q2=0.503, r2=0.831) models were developed for a set of 47 beta-carbolines. The results indicated that the antitumor pharmacophore of these molecules were marked at position-1, -2, -3, -7 and -9 of beta-carboline ring.

Synthesis and structure–activity relationships of harmine derivatives as potential antitumor agents

Harmine, a naturally occurring β-carboline alkaloid, showed good antitumor activities together with remarkable neurotoxic effects in animal models. In order to search for novel leading compounds endowed with better antitumor activities and less neurotoxicities, a series of harmine derivatives were designed and synthesized by modification of position-2, 7 and 9 of β-carboline nucleus, and their cytotoxic activities against human tumor cell lines were investigated. Acute toxicities and antitumor activities of the selected compounds in mice were also evaluated. Structure-activity relationships studies confirmed that (1) the 7-methoxy structural moiety was the pharmacophore responsible for the neurotoxic effects of this class of compounds; (2) the substituents in position-2 and 9 played a vital role in modulation of their antitumor activities.

Synthesis, cytotoxic activities and DNA binding properties of β-carboline derivatives

In a continuing effort to develop novel β-carbolines endowed with better pharmacological profile, a series of water-soluble β-carbolines bearing a flexible amino side chain was designed and synthesized, and the cytotoxic activities in vitro of these compounds were evaluated. The N(9)-arylated alkyl substituted β-carbolines represented the most interesting cytotoxic agents, and compounds 4c and 4d were found to be the most potent compounds with IC(50) values lower than 10 μM against ten human tumor cell lines. The results confirmed that the N(9)-arylated alkyl substituents of β-carboline played a very important role in the modulation of the cytotoxic potencies. In addition, the interaction with DNA of these compounds was also investigated, these compounds were found to exhibit significant DNA binding affinity.

DH166, a beta-carboline derivative, inhibits the kinase activity of PLK1

A better way to treat complex diseases such as cancer is to aim for several targets at once. Beta-carboline derivatives have been shown to have anticancer activity, but these compounds may target several enzymes required for cell division. Polo-like kinases (PLKs) are well conserved serine/threonine kinases and PLK1 plays multiple roles in cell proliferation. Thus, PLK1 is one of the attractive mitotic targets for anticancer drugs. We found that DH166, a beta-carboline derivative, inhibits the growth of cdc5-2 temperature-sensitive mutant more profoundly than wild-type yeast cells. Because Cdc5 is the human PLK1 homologue in budding yeast, this observation indicates that DH166 might be a PLK1 inhibitor. Indeed, DH166 inhibits the kinase activity of purified PLK1 at low micromolar concentration in an ATP-competitive manner, which is consistent with the docking result based on the crystal structure of PLK1. In addition, DH166 blocks cancer cell proliferation, causes a mitotic arrest, increases cyclin B1 accumulation, induces aberrant mitotic spindles and apoptosis, presumably due to the down-regulation of PLK1. Although beta-carboline derivatives have been demonstrated to show antitumor activities through multiple mechanisms, our data indicate for the first time that their cytotoxicity to tumor cells might be attributable to the inhibition of PLK1 as well.

Synthesis and biological evaluation of 1,9-disubstituted β-carbolines as potent DNA intercalating and cytotoxic agents

A series of novel 1,9-disubstituted β-carbolines was designed, synthesized and evaluated as cytotoxic and DNA intercalating agents. Compounds 7b, 7c, 8b and 8c exhibited the most potent cytotoxic activities with IC(50) values of lower than 20 μM against ten human tumor cell lines. The results indicated that (1) the 3-chlorobenzyl and 3-phenylpropyl substituents in position-9 of β-carboline nucleus were the suitable pharmacophoric group giving rise to significant antitumor agents; (2) the length of the alkylamino side chain moiety affected their cytotoxic potencies, and three CH(2) units were more favorable. In addition, these compounds were found to exhibit remarkable DNA intercalating effects.