An insight into the anticancer potential of carbamates and thiocarbamates of 10-demethoxy-10-methylaminocolchicine

Abstract

Colchicine shows very high antimitotic activity, therefore, it is used as a lead compound for generation of new anticancer agents. In the hope of developing novel, useful drugs with more favourable pharmacological profiles, a series of doubly modified colchicine derivatives has been designed, synthesized and characterized. These novel carbamate or thiocarbamate derivatives of 10-demethoxy-10-methylaminocolchicine have been tested for their antiproliferative activity against four human cancer cell lines. Additionally, their mode of action has been evaluated as colchicine binding site inhibitors, using molecular docking studies. Most of the tested compounds showed greater cytotoxicity (IC₅₀ in a low nanomolar range) and were characterized by a higher selectivity index than standard chemotherapeutics such as cisplatin and doxorubicin as well as unmodified colchicine. Their pharmacological use in cancer therapy could possibly be accomplished with lower dosages and result in less acute toxicity problems than in the case of colchicine. In addition, we present a QSAR model for predicting the antiproliferative activity of doubly modified derivatives for two tumour cell lines.

Keywords: Anticancer agents; Carbamate; Crystal structure; Docking studies; QSAR; Thiocarbamate; Tubulin inhibitors.