Cancer will be the major cause of death in the 21st century and natural products should provide n... more Cancer will be the major cause of death in the 21st century and natural products should provide novel and more effective anticancer agents. This review deals with new natural molecules liable to become anticancer drugs, as well as recent specific strategies for a selective treatment of cancer. The introduction presents the current state of the art on anticancer research. Beside, in the following subheadings we summarize our research on cytotoxic natural quinone methide-triperpenes and their analogues. We also discuss our results on the anti-tumour promoting activity of natural naphthoquinones and their derivatives.
On the basis of previous pharmacophore modeling studies of naphthoquinones derivatives, we have d... more On the basis of previous pharmacophore modeling studies of naphthoquinones derivatives, we have designed and synthesized a new set of pyranonaphthoquinones. These compounds were obtained through a direct and highly efficient approach based on an intramolecular domino Knoevenagel hetero Diels-Alder reaction from lawsone (2-hydroxynaphthoquinone) and a variety of aldehydes containing an alkene. The synthesized pyranonaphthoquinones were evaluated against the alpha isoform of human topoisomerase II (hTopoIIalpha). Among the 11 derivatives studied, we found that six of them act as catalytic inhibitors of the enzyme in vitro. These six derivatives strongly preclude the enzyme from decatenating or relaxing suitable substrates. Finally, we correlate their active/inactive status with docking studies of these novel compounds into the ATPase domain of hTopoIIalpha.
Cancer will be the major cause of death in the 21st century and natural products should provide n... more Cancer will be the major cause of death in the 21st century and natural products should provide novel and more effective anticancer agents. This review deals with new natural molecules liable to become anticancer drugs, as well as recent specific strategies for a selective treatment of cancer. The introduction presents the current state of the art on anticancer research. Beside, in the following subheadings we summarize our research on cytotoxic natural quinone methide-triperpenes and their analogues. We also discuss our results on the anti-tumour promoting activity of natural naphthoquinones and their derivatives.
On the basis of previous pharmacophore modeling studies of naphthoquinones derivatives, we have d... more On the basis of previous pharmacophore modeling studies of naphthoquinones derivatives, we have designed and synthesized a new set of pyranonaphthoquinones. These compounds were obtained through a direct and highly efficient approach based on an intramolecular domino Knoevenagel hetero Diels-Alder reaction from lawsone (2-hydroxynaphthoquinone) and a variety of aldehydes containing an alkene. The synthesized pyranonaphthoquinones were evaluated against the alpha isoform of human topoisomerase II (hTopoIIalpha). Among the 11 derivatives studied, we found that six of them act as catalytic inhibitors of the enzyme in vitro. These six derivatives strongly preclude the enzyme from decatenating or relaxing suitable substrates. Finally, we correlate their active/inactive status with docking studies of these novel compounds into the ATPase domain of hTopoIIalpha.
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Papers by Elisa Perez