Series of 3-substituted of 6-aminosulfonyl-β-carbolines were designed and synthesized. In addition, the binding mode of these β-carboline derivatives with cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) was studied by means of fluorescence measurements and molecular docking calculation. The results showed that replacement of 3-cyclohexylmethoxy group will increase the hydrophobic binding interaction with the deep hydrophobic pocket of CDK2 correlate to the higher binding intensity.Key words cyclin-dependent kinase 2; β-carboline; synthesis; molecular docking; fluorescence It is well known that the phases of the cell cycle are driven by cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs). Upon complexation with its activating proteins, cyclin E or cyclin A, cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) modulates the activity of many cellular substrates via phosphorylation on serine (Ser) and/or threonine (Thr) residues.1-4) Abnormal CDK control of the cell cycle has been strongly linked to the molecular pathology of cancer.
5)The importance of CDK2 for cell cycle progression has led to an active pursuit of small molecule inhibitors of this enzyme as a possible treatment against cancer and other hyper-proliferative disorders.6-9) All CDK inhibitors, identified so far, function by competing with ATP for binding to the catalytic site. Actually several CDK inhibitors have entered clinical evaluation for the treatment of cancer, including flavopiridol, amino-thiazole compound.10) In our program to develop CDK2 inhibitors, we recently investigate the β-carboline alkaloids containing a planar tricyclic system as a large group of naturally-occurring and synthetic alkaloids, [11][12][13][14] which has a broad spectrum of biochemical effects and pharmaceutical properties. These compounds have been shown to intercalate into DNA, to inhibit CDK, topisomerase and monoamine oxidase, and to interact with benzodiazepine receptors (BZ), 5-hydroxy serotonin receptors (5-HT), dopamine (DA) and imidazoline receptors. [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] Inspired by these results, our research group recently focused on first of all, using a structure-guided strategy based on CDK2 as appropriate means to generate potent CDK2 inhibitors; then to synthesize disubstituted β-carbolines and to complete their biological evaluation study. As a part of our systematic work, in this paper, structure modification of β-carboline based on increasing its hydrophobic nature has been adopted. Herein we reported the design and synthesis of series of 3-substituted of 6-aminosulfonyl-β-carbolines. Series of 3-substituted compounds with different hydrophobic groups (Chart 1) were synthesized and one of their structures was elucidated with X-ray crystal analysis. The new derivatives were prepared following the reaction sequences depicted in Charts 2-4. Their binding intensity with CDK2 was measured by fluorescence spectroscopy.
ExperimentalSynthesis The target compounds were prepared using the reaction sequence. All the chemical structures of the synthesized compounds were confirmed by spectroscopic me...