Introducing urea into tirapazamine derivatives to enhance anticancer therapy

© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of China Science Publishing & Media..

Tirapazamine (TPZ) has been approved for multiple clinical trials relying on its excellent anticancer potential. However, as a typical hypoxia-activated prodrug (HAP), TPZ did not exhibit survival advantages in Phase III clinical trials when used in combination therapy due to the insufficient hypoxia levels in patients' tumors. In this study, to improve the therapeutic effects of TPZ, we first introduced urea to synthesize a series of urea-containing derivatives of TPZ. All urea-containing TPZ derivatives showed increased hypoxic cytotoxicity (9.51-30.85-fold) compared with TPZ, while maintaining hypoxic selectivity. TPZP, one of these derivatives, showed 20-fold higher cytotoxicity than TPZ while maintaining a similar hypoxic cytotoxicity ratio. To highly efficiently deliver TPZP to the tumors and reduce its side effects on healthy tissues, we further prepared TPZP into a nanodrug with fibrin-targeting ability: FT11-TPZP-NPs. CA4-NPs, a vascular disrupting agent, was used to increase the fibrin level within tumors and exacerbate tumor hypoxia. By being combined with CA4-NPs, FT11-TPZP-NPs can accumulate in the hypoxia-aggravated tumors and activate sufficiently to kill tumor cells. After a single-dose treatment, FT11-TPZP-NPs + CA4-NPs showed a high inhibition rate of 98.1% against CT26 tumor models with an initial volume of ∼480 mm3 and four out of six tumors were completely eliminated; it thereby exerted a significant antitumor effect. This study provides a new strategy for improving the therapeutic effect of TPZ and other HAPs in anticancer therapy.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2024

Erschienen:

2024

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:11

Enthalten in:

National science review - 11(2024), 4 vom: 28. März, Seite nwae038

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Xu, Yajun [VerfasserIn]
Lv, Jianlin [VerfasserIn]
Kong, Chaoying [VerfasserIn]
Liu, Ya [VerfasserIn]
Wang, Kun [VerfasserIn]
Tang, Zhaohui [VerfasserIn]
Chen, Xuesi [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Combretastatin A4
Hypoxia-activated prodrug
Journal Article
Tirapazamine
Urea
Vascular disrupting agent

Anmerkungen:

Date Revised 08.03.2024

published: Electronic-eCollection

Citation Status PubMed-not-MEDLINE

doi:

10.1093/nsr/nwae038

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM369300831