Anticancer Activity and Mechanism of Action Evaluation of an Acylhydrazone Cu(II) Complex toward Breast Cancer Cells, Spheroids, and Mammospheres.
Lucia M BalsaMaria R RodriguezBeatriz S Parajón-CostaAna C González-BaróMartin J LavecchiaIgnacio Esteban LeónPublished in: ChemMedChem (2021)
The purpose of this work was to screen the anticancer activity and mechanisms of action of Cu(II)-acylhydrazone complex [Cu(HL)(H2 O)](NO3 )⋅H2 O, (CuHL), to find a potential novel agent for breast chemotherapies. Cytotoxicity studies on MCF7 cells demonstrated that CuHL has stronger anticancer properties than cisplatin over breast cancer cell models. Computational simulations showed that CuHL could interact in the minor groove of the DNA dodecamer, inducing a significant genotoxic effect on both cancer cells from 0.5 to 1 μM. In this sense, molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations showed that the compound could interact with 20S proteasome subunits. Also, cell proteasome experiments using breast cancer cells revealed that the complex can inhibit proteasomal activity. Moreover, CuHL induced apoptosis in breast cancer cells at very low micromolar concentrations (0.5-2.5 μM) and displayed relevant anticancer activity over spheroids derived from MCF7 cells. Ultimately, CuHL diminished the number of mammospheres formed, disturbing their morphology and size.
Keyphrases
- breast cancer cells
- induced apoptosis
- molecular dynamics simulations
- molecular docking
- endoplasmic reticulum stress
- signaling pathway
- oxidative stress
- single cell
- cell cycle arrest
- papillary thyroid
- high throughput
- cell death
- cell therapy
- stem cells
- aqueous solution
- lymph node metastasis
- mesenchymal stem cells
- cell proliferation
- climate change