• Media type: E-Article
  • Title: Melatonin–vorinostat hybrid ligands show higher histone deacetylase and cancer cell growth inhibition than vorinostat
  • Contributor: Helmi, Youssef Y.; Papenkordt, Niklas; Rennar, Georg; Gbahou, Florence; El‐Hady, Ahmed K.; Labani, Nedjma; Schmidtkunz, Karin; Boettcher, Stefan; Jockers, Ralf; Abdel‐Halim, Mohammad; Jung, Manfred; Zlotos, Darius P.
  • imprint: Wiley, 2023
  • Published in: Archiv der Pharmazie
  • Language: English
  • DOI: 10.1002/ardp.202300149
  • ISSN: 0365-6233; 1521-4184
  • Origination:
  • Footnote:
  • Description: <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Anticancer drug conjugates are an emerging approach for future cancer treatment. Here, we report a series of hybrid ligands merging the neurohormone melatonin with the approved histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor vorinostat, using melatonin's amide side chain (<jats:bold>3a–e</jats:bold>), its indolic nitrogen (<jats:bold>5a–d</jats:bold>), and its ether oxygen (<jats:bold>7a–d</jats:bold>) as attachment points. Several hybrid ligands showed higher potency thanvorinostat in both HDAC inhibition and cellular assays on different cultured cancer cell lines. In the most potent HDAC1 and HDAC6 inhibitors, <jats:bold>3e, 5c</jats:bold>, and <jats:bold>7c</jats:bold>, the hydroxamic acid moiety of vorinostat is linked to melatonin through a hexamethylene spacer. Hybrid ligands <jats:bold>5c</jats:bold> and <jats:bold>7c</jats:bold> were also found to be potent growth inhibitors of MCF‐7, PC‐3M‐Luc, and HL‐60 cancer cell lines. As these compounds showed only weak agonist activity at melatonin MT<jats:sub>1</jats:sub> receptors, the findings indicate that their anticancer actions are driven by HDAC inhibition.</jats:p>