In vitro antitumor structure-activity relationships of threo/trans/threo/trans/erythro bis-tetrahydrofuranic acetogenins: correlations with their inhibition of mitochondrial complex I.

Annonaceous acetogenins are known to be cytotoxic against tumor cell lines by virtue of their inhibition of mitochondrial complex I. We decided to conclude part of our recent revisions of the different structure-activity relationships (SARs) found within these compounds with a detailed description of the cytotoxic activity, and correlations with the inhibition of the target enzyme, of the broadest subclass of this family of natural products, the bis-tetrahydrofuranic acetogenins (bis-THF ACGs) of threo/trans/threo/trans/erythro relative configuration. Five naturally occurring ACGs and more than 10 semisynthetic analogs were tested against the MCF-7 (breast), A-549 (lung), HepG2 (liver), HT-29 (colon), MES-SA (ovary), and a multidrug-resistant (MDR-MES-SA/Dx5) cell lines using the MTr cytotoxicity assay to determine if the mitochondrial complex I inhibition correlated with the in vitro antitumor potency of the most common ACGs. Results indicated that a previously observed trend for other subclasses of ACGs between the ED50 of the cytotoxicity assay and the polarity of compounds was not present in this set and that there were several specific interactions that enhanced the antitumor activity. For example, some of the guanacone derivatives prepared were two orders of magnitude more potent than the parent compound for specific cell lines.