Synthesis and preliminary in vitro biological evaluation of 7α-testosterone-chlorambucil hybrid designed for the treatment of prostate cancer

The synthesis of 7α-testosterone-chlorambucil hybrid is reported. This compound is made from testosterone in a 6 step reaction sequence and with 23% overall yield. An alternative convergent reaction sequence yielded the same hybrid through a Grubbs metathesis reaction between chlorambucil allyl ester and 7α-allyltestosterone with 35% overall yield. MTT assays showed that the hybrid is selective towards hormone-dependent prostate Cancer cell line (LNCaP (AR+)) and shows similar activity than the parent drug, chlorambucil. Thus, the new hybrid shows promising potential for drug targeting of hormone-dependent prostate Cancer through its capacity of delivering chlorambucil directly to the site of treatment. This could extend the use of chlorambucil to prostate Cancer in the future.