Recently, research has focused on targeting the oxidative and metabolic vulnerabilities in cancer cells. Natural compounds like curcumin that target such susceptibilities have failed further clinical advancements due to the poor stability and bioavailability as well as the need of high effective doses. We have synthesized and evaluated the anti-cancer activity of several monocarbonyl analogs of curcumin. Interestingly, two novel analogs (Compound A and I) in comparison to curcumin, have increased chemical stability and have greater anti-cancer activity in a variety of human cancer cells, including triple-negative, inflammatory breast cancer cells. In particular, the generation of reactive oxygen species was selective to cancer cells and occurred upstream of mitochondrial collapse and execution of apoptosis. Furthermore, Compound A in combination with another cancer-selective/pro-oxidant, piperlongumine, caused an enhanced anti-cancer effect. Most importantly, Compound A was well tolerated by mice and was effective in inhibiting the growth of human triple-negative breast cancer and leukemia xenografts in vivo when administered intraperitoneally. Thus, exploiting oxidative vulnerabilities in cancer cells could be a selective and efficacious means to eradicate malignant cells as demonstrated by the curcumin analogs presented in this report with high therapeutic potential.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent form of dementia and is associated with loss of memory, amyloid-beta plaque buildup, and neurofibrillary tangles. These features might be a result of neuronal cell death in the cerebral cortex and hippocampal regions of the brain. AD pathologies can be attributed to a variety of biochemical consequences including mitochondrial dysfunction, increased oxidative stress, and autophagy inhibition. Unfortunately, current therapeutics are limited only to symptomatic relief and do not halt the progression of neurodegeneration. Previous in vitro experiments have shown that a water-soluble formulation of coenzyme-Q10, Ubisol-Q10, can stabilize the mitochondria, prevent oxidative stress, and inhibit premature senescence in fibroblasts of AD patients. Since autophagy plays a critical role in maintenance and survival of neurons, we hypothesized that Ubisol-Q10 treatment could result in resumption of autophagy. Indeed, we observed induction of autophagy by Ubisol-Q10 treatment in AD fibroblasts as well as in the brains of transgenic AD mice. We found increased expression of autophagy-related genes beclin-1 and JNK1 following Ubisol-Q10 treatment of AD fibroblasts. These results were confirmed at the protein level by immunofluorescence and Western blotting. Interestingly, despite reduction of oxidative stress in cells due to Ubisol-Q10 treatment, autophagy inhibition leads to resumption of premature senescence in these PS-1 mutated fibroblasts indicating that autophagy is critical to prevent the senescence phenotype. Withdrawal of Ubisol-Q10 treatment also leads to the return of the senescence phenotype in AD fibroblasts indicating that constant supplementation of Ubisol-Q10 is required. Additionally, Ubisol-Q10 supplementation in the drinking water of double transgenic AD mice leads to increased expression of beclin-1 and JNK1 in the cortical region. Thus, the activation of autophagy by Ubisol-Q10 could be the mechanism for its ability to halt the progression of AD pathology in transgenic AD mice shown previously.

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