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  3. A drug-like imidazole-benzothiazole conjugate inhibits malignant melanoma by stabilizing the c-MYC G-quadruplex

A drug-like imidazole-benzothiazole conjugate inhibits malignant melanoma by stabilizing the c-MYC G-quadruplex

  • Bioorg Chem. 2020 Jun;99:103866. doi: 10.1016/j.bioorg.2020.103866.
Tian-Ying Wu 1,  Qiong Huang 2,  Zhi-Shu Huang 1,  Ming-Hao Hu 3,  Jia-Heng Tan 4
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Design and Evaluation, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China.
  • 2 School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shenzhen University Health Science Center, Shenzhen 518060, China.
  • 3 School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shenzhen University Health Science Center, Shenzhen 518060, China. Electronic address: 642469829@qq.com.
  • 4 Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Design and Evaluation, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China. Electronic address: tanjiah@mail.sysu.edu.cn.
PMID: 32330737 DOI: 10.1016/j.bioorg.2020.103866
Abstract

Aberrant expression of c-Myc oncogene is significantly associated with the occurrence and development of malignant melanoma. Suppression of the c-Myc transcriptional activity accordingly provides a new idea for treating melanoma. Notably, stabilizing the G-quadruplex (G4) structure in the promoter is proved to be effective in downregulating c-Myc transcription. In this work, we developed a drug-like imidazole-benzothiazole conjugate called IZTZ-1, which was confirmed to preferentially stabilize the promoter G4 and thus lower c-Myc expression. Intracellular assays revealed that IZTZ-1 induced cell cycle arrest, Apoptosis, thereby inhibiting cell proliferation. Furthermore, IZTZ-1 was demonstrated to effectively inhibit tumor growth in a melanoma mouse model. Consequently, IZTZ-1 showed good potential in the treatment of melanoma. This study provides an alternative strategy to treat melanoma by targeting the c-Myc G4.

Keywords

Benzothiazole; G-quadruplex; Imidazole; Melanoma; c-MYC.

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