Harmine is a beta-carboline alkaloid found in medicinal plant PeganumHarmala, which has served as a folk anticancer medicine. However, clinical applications of harmine were limited by its low pharmacological effects and noticeable neurotoxicity. In this study, we modified harmine to increase the therapeutic efficacy and to decrease the systemic toxicity. Specifically, two tumor targeting harmine derivatives 2DG-Har-01 and MET-Har-02 were synthesized by modifying substituent in position-2, -7 and -9 of harmine ring with two different targeting group2-amino-2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG) and Methionine (Met), respectively. Their therapeutic efficacy and toxicity were investigated both in vitro and in vivo. Results suggested that the two newharmine derivatives displayed much higher therapeutic effects than non-modified harmine. In particular, MET-Har-02 was more potent than 2DG-Har-01 with promising potential for targeted cancer therapy.

Harmine is a beta-carboline alkaloid from the plant Peganum harmala. These alkaloids were stimulated by their promising antitumor activities in the recent years. In this study, we designed and synthesized two harmine derivatives #1and #2 modified at position-9 of harmine with ethyl and phenylpropyl, respectively. To improve the tumor targeting capability, #1' and #2' were synthesized by conjugating 2-amino-2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG) to the derivatives #1 and #2, respectively. The MTT assays of all these compounds in vitro against L02, HepG2 showed all compounds had low toxicity to normal cells (L02) and significantly enhanced carcinoma cell inhibitory rate compared to harmine.Cytotoxicity against liver cancer cell lines of compound #1' #2' is higher than #1 #2, and even the compound #2' is better than positive drug 5-FU. The compound #2', a novel 2DG-based harmine derivatives, could become a promising drug for targeted cancer therapy and combination therapy with other antitumor drugs.