Design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of C-8 modified curcumol derivatives against colorectal cancer cell lines

Abstract

A series of structurally modified curcumol derivatives at C-8 position were designed and synthesized, whose structures were confirmed by ¹H NMR,¹³C NMR, and HRMS analysis. The tested compounds were evaluated for in vitro antitumor activity against colorectal cancer cell lines SW620, HCT116, and CaCo2. Many of the tested candidates exhibited higher inhibition efficiency than curcumol. Among them, compound 3 l shows the best inhibitory effect on the viability of SW620 with IC₅₀ value of 19.90 ± 0.64 µM. The structure-activity relationships of these derivatives were discussed, which showed that the introduction of amino or aryl groups tended to increase the anti-cancer activity. In addition, compound 3 l may inhibit cancer cell proliferation through triggering cell apoptosis.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Curcumol
• structural modification
• anti-CRC activity
• cell apoptosis

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (21877099, 21372203) and Opening Project of Zhejiang Provincial Preponderant and Characteristic Subject of Key University (Traditional Chinese Pharmacology), Zhejiang Chinese Medical University (No. ZYAOXZD2019008).