Synthesis and characterization of biologically relevant redox-active molecules
Date
2023
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Abstract
Redox chemistry is fundamental to several essential life processes, such as energy metabolism, respiration, and free radical formation. Many redox-active inorganic and organic molecules are promising agents to combat difficult-to-treat diseases, including cancer and tuberculosis. This dissertation covers the syntheses, studies of the fundamental chemical and biological properties of two vastly different classes of redox-active molecules, inorganic and organic molecules. Most of this work has investigated the fundamental development of hydrophilic, hydrophobic and amphiphilic redox-active vanadium complexes for the treatment of different types of cancer. The last chapter of this dissertation describes the studies of the fundamental properties of demethylmenaquinones which are biosynthetic precursors to menaquinones, lipid electron carriers essential for anaerobic bacterial respiration of several types of bacteria, including Escherichia coli, Actinomadura madurae and pathogenic Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Targeting bacterial electron transport chain disrupts respiration of pathogenic Mycobacterium tuberculosis, thus, studying the properties of demethylmenaquinone analogs is of great interest. Chapter one, an introductory chapter, presents a comprehensive review of the developments in vanadium anticancer therapeutics over the last five years. The structural diversity of the vanadium-containing anticancer compounds, potential applications to various cancer cell lines, and different modes of delivery of highly cytotoxic vanadium species are described in detail. Vanadium gained interest for its anticancer applications after bis(maltolato)oxovanadium(IV), an antidiabetic complexes studied in Phase II clinical trials, went off patent in September 2011. Previous studies with vanadium antidiabetic complexes, however, provided valuable information to understand the action of novel vanadium anticancer complexes, as cancer and diabetes target the same metabolic pathways. Chapters two and three describe the syntheses, spectroscopic characterization, and cytotoxic studies of novel vanadium(V) catecholate complexes with pyridine-containing Schiff base ligands. According to previous reports, vanadium(V) Schiff base catecholate complexes are promising agents for glioblastoma treatment, and herein we investigated whether the presence of the pyridine ring on the Schiff base scaffold improves cytotoxicity and hydrolytic stability of the vanadium catecholato complexes. The studies showed that the presence of the pyridine ring improves hydrolytic stability of the V(V) catecholate complexes, yet it decreases their uptake into glioblastoma cells which result in the decrease of cytotoxicity of the complexes. Even though the stability increased and the compounds have enough time to get into cells, the efficacy of these complexes decreased. Chapter three further explores the redox properties and the redox reaction mechanism of vanadium(V) Schiff base catecholate complexes with pyridine-scaffolds and tert- butyl substituted catecholate ligands. Chapter four describes the speciation studies and testing of vanadium(V) dipicolinate that enhance the effects of oncolytic viruses, non-pathogenic viruses that can infect and kill cancer cells. Additionally, the chapter describes 1H and 51V NMR studies carried out in model membrane interfaces. The data show that V(V) dipicolinates hydrolyze under physiological conditions and generate vanadate which ultimately enhances the spread of the oncolytic viruses. V(V) dipicolinates are located on the interface of the aqueous pool and hydrophobic region of model membranes which also contributes to their hydrolysis. Chapter five describes PtIV and MoVI monosubstituted decavanadates, monoplatino(IV)nonavanadate(V) ([H2PtIVVV9O28]5-, V9Pt), and monomolybdo(VI)-nonavanadate(V) ([MoVIVV9O28]5-, V9Mo), and their ability to initiate signal transduction on the luteinizing hormone receptor (LHR) in CHO cells and their speciation chemistry under the biological experiments. The PtIV and MoVI monosubstituted decavanadates are large vanadium- oxo clusters that are structurally similar to decavanadate but have different charges. The results showed that both V9Mo and V9Pt affect LHR expression and do not inhibit cell growth which is different than the decavanadate ([V10O28]6−, abbreviated V10). Although all the clusters hydrolyze under the assay conditions lifetimes are different, and this was characterized using spectroscopic methods. Using the washing experiments, we were able to show that the V9Pt and V9Mo monosubstituted decavanadates do not associate with the cells and, hence, do not negatively affect cell growth, however, they are more effective in initiating signaling. Chapter six describes initial efforts to study the fundamental properties of two truncated demethylmenaquinones, biosynthetic precursors for menaquinones. The studies are important to understand the fundamental differences between the chemical properties of menaquinones and demethylmenaquines which include 3D conformation and redox potential. Indeed, the development of inhibitors of MenG, a methyltransferase enzyme that coverts demethylmenaquines to form menaquinones, is a known target for drug development for antitubercular applications. Therefore, we investigated whether non-native demethylmenaquines would convert to menaquinones by the relevant enzymes present in the membrane preparations. In summary, the first five chapters demonstrate 1) the diversity of applications of vanadium compounds for treatment of different types of cancer and 2) the efforts to develop vanadium- based anticancer therapeutics to treat different types of cancer. The final chapter describes efforts in fundamental studies preparing and characterizing the chemical properties the truncated demethylmenaquinones. In addition, we demonstrated that the membrane preparations of mycobacteria concerted the synthesized truncated demethylmenaquinone-2 and demethylmenaquinone-3 are processed to form menquinone-2 and menaquinone-3.
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Embargo expires: 08/28/2025.
Subject
lipid electron carriers
vanadium anticancer complexes
vanadium
demethylmenaquinone