Prostate cancer (PC) is one of the major causes of male death worldwide and the development of new and more potent anti-PC compounds is a constant requirement. Among the current treatments, (R)-bicalutamide and enzalutamide are non-steroidal androgen receptor antagonist drugs approved also in the case of castration-resistant forms.
Both these drugs present a moderate antiproliferative activity and their use is limited due to the development of resistant mutants of their biological target. Insertion of fluorinated and perfluorinated groups in biologically active compounds is a current trend in medicinal chemistry, applied to improve their efficacy and stability profiles. As a means to obtain such effects, different modifications with perfluoro groups were rationally designed on the bicalutamide and enzalutamide structures, leading to the synthesis of a series of new antiproliferative compounds. Several new analogues displayed improved in vitro activity towards four different prostate cancer cell lines, while maintaining full AR antagonism and therefore representing promising leads for further development. Furthermore, a series of molecular modelling studies were performed on the AR antagonist conformation, providing useful insights on potential protein-ligand interactions.
European journal of medicinal chemistry. 2016 Apr 22 [Epub ahead of print]
Marcella Bassetto, Salvatore Ferla, Fabrizio Pertusati, Sahar Kandil, Andrew D Westwell, Andrea Brancale, Christopher McGuigan
School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Redwood Building, King Edward VII Avenue, CF10 3NB, Cardiff, Wales, UK., School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Redwood Building, King Edward VII Avenue, CF10 3NB, Cardiff, Wales, UK. School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Redwood Building, King Edward VII Avenue, CF10 3NB, Cardiff, Wales, UK., School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Redwood Building, King Edward VII Avenue, CF10 3NB, Cardiff, Wales, UK., School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Redwood Building, King Edward VII Avenue, CF10 3NB, Cardiff, Wales, UK., School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Redwood Building, King Edward VII Avenue, CF10 3NB, Cardiff, Wales, UK., School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Redwood Building, King Edward VII Avenue, CF10 3NB, Cardiff, Wales, UK.