Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 21, Issue 3, 2025

The objective of this study is to explore the therapeutic potential of phytochemicals in cancer cell metabolism by investigating their ability to inhibit key molecular targets involved in tumor growth and drug resistance.

We evaluated specific phytochemicals against critical cancer-related targets such as GLS1, CKα, MGLL, IDH1, PDHK1, and PHGDH. Molecular docking methods were used to understand the binding interactions between phytochemicals and their selected targets. ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion) analysis and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were conducted to assess pharmacokinetic properties and ligand-protein interaction dynamics, respectively. MM-PBSA (molecular mechanics Poisson-Boltzmann surface area) calculations were utilized to estimate binding free energies.

Molecular dynamics simulations demonstrate that phytochemicals like EGCG, Diosgenin, Withaferin A, and Celastrol exhibit stable binding to their respective targets, suggesting potential therapeutic benefits. Specifically, EGCG shows strong and non-toxic binding affinity with GLS1, making it a promising candidate for cancer treatment.

Our study underscores the potential of phytochemicals as effective inhibitors of cancer cell metabolism. The stable binding interactions highlight promising avenues for developing innovative cancer therapies. Further experimental investigations are warranted to validate these findings and advance the development of hybrid phytochemical-based treatments for combating chemoresistance.

Nowadays, use of phosphate modifications in oligonucleotide backbone has become a common approach for imbuing its structure with the desired beneficial properties. The recent advances in successful application of different classes of phosphate modifications in the design of therapeutic oligonucleotides have led to a renewed interest in the development of approaches for introducing diverse classes of phosphate modifications.

This study aims to investigate the efficiency and optimize protocols for the application of the iodine-amine oxidation reaction to produce various N-alkyl phosphoramidate oligonucleotide derivatives during the conventional solid-phase phosphoramidite synthesis method.

Various solvents and drying reagents were tested, and it was evaluated that even minor traces of water in a reaction mixture had a significant impact on yield. Using set of commercially available amines, it was shown that steric accessibility is a more critical parameter than nucleophilicity of the amino group in oxidative amination reaction. It was demonstrated that through use of amino alcohols and diamines during iodine-amine oxidation step various branched oligonucleotide structures can be synthesized.

The obtained data indicates that the oxidative amination approach can be a promising tool for preparing various oligonucleotide derivatives during solid-phase synthesis without the use of specialized phosphoramidite monomers.

Cervical cancer is a global health problem due to its high incidence and prevalence in women, mainly in third-world countries. For the treatment of this disease, there are different therapeutic options, but these are not always effective, which gives rise to the search for new compounds using cheminformatics tools.

The objective of this study was to design, synthesize, and biologically evaluate N-(2-morpholinoethyl)-2-(naphthalen-2-yloxy)acetamide hydrochloride (1) and 2-(naphthalen-2-yloxy)-N-(2-(piperidin-1-yl)ethyl)acetamide hydrochloride (2) on the HeLa cell line in vitro. The referenced cell line from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC^®CCL-2™) was used, and the effect on cell viability was determined by MTT metabolic reduction-based assay at 24, 48, and 72 h.

Therapies directed at the σ1 receptor may be a treatment alternative since this receptor modulates the processes of cell proliferation and angiogenesis, producing cytoprotective or cytotoxic actions depending on the ligand with which it is coupled.

The analysis showed that compounds 1 and 2 presented activity on HeLa cancer cells and viability at micromolar concentrations (1.923 μmol/mL and 0.374 μmol/mL, respectively). Moreover, the effect was maintained for 72 h.

Naphthaleneacetamide derivatives exhibited an inhibitory effect on the HeLa cell line, and the OSIRIS program predicted less toxicity than cisplatin.