Design and synthesis of novel steroidal imidazoles as dual inhibitors of AR/CYP17 for the treatment of prostate cancer

Publication date: Available online 15 March 2019Source: SteroidsAuthor(s): Qiangqiang Hou, Conghui He, Kejing Lao, Guoshun Luo, Qidong You, Hua XiangAbstractBoth AR and CYP17 are important targets for blocking androgen signaling, and it has been accepted that multifunctional drugs have a low risk of drug resistance in the treatment of cancer. Thus, herein a series of steroidal imidazoles were designed, synthesized and evaluated as dual AR/CYP17 ligands. Several compounds displayed good biological profiles in both enzymatic and cellular assays. SAR studies showed that introducing oximino at the C-3 position of steriodal scaffold is beneficial to the enhancement of AR antagonistic activity. Among these compounds, the most potent compound 13a exhibited the best AR inhibition (IC50 = 0.5 μM) that was 27-fold increase compared with the hit compound 5 as well as comparable CYP17 inhibition (IC50 =11 μM). Additionally, 13a displayed promising anti-proliferative effects on LNCap cell lines with the IC50 value of 23 μM which was superior to positive control Flutamide (IC50 =28 μM). Furthermore, the docking results of 13a revealed that the oxygen atom at the position of C-3 connected to the heme of CYP17, which may be helpful for its satisfactory dual-target inhibition. In summary, this study provides an efficient strategy for multi-targeting drug discovery in the treatment of prostate cancer.Graphical abstract
Source: Steroids - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Source Type: research