SYNTHESIS AND CYTOTOXIC ACTIVITY OF NEW 5H-INDOLO[2,3-B]QUINOLINE O-AMINOGLYCOSIDES.

Novel 5H-indolo[2,3-b]quinoline O-aminoglycosides were synthesized in order to check the hypothesis that the construction of hybrids composed of the active 5H-indolo[2,3-b]quinoline chromophore and daunosaminyl or acosaminyl moiety may result in the cytotoxic activity of the obtained derivatives that is much higher than the one of the parent DIMIQ (5,11-dimethyl-5H-indolo[2,3-b]quinoline) and 6H-indoloquinoline analogs. Actually, 5H-indolo[2,3-b]indoloquinoline O-aminoglycosides showed the anti-proliferative activity in vitro against human lung adenocarcinoma A549, breast cancer MCF-7, melanoma Hs294T, promyelocytic leukemia HL-60, uterine sarcoma MES-SA and colon cancer LoVo cell lines, which was 10 times higher than that of the 6H-analogs and comparable to the one of the referential DIMIQ. Unexpectedly, it appeared that except for HL-60/MX2 (P-gp-independent and topoisomerase II-dependent resistance), other MDR tumor cell lines (LoVo/DX. P-gp-dependent, MRP-, LRP-dependent multidrug resistance) and MES-SA/DX5 (P-gp-dependent resistance to doxorubicin) are also resistant to the 5H-indolo[2,3-b]indoloquinoline O-aminoglycosides tested. This is surprising because 6H-analogs, in general, 10 times less active against non-MDR tumor cell lines, as well as the DIMIQ itself, are able to overcome drug resistance in all MDR cell lines examined. The cytotoxicity of the tested compounds against tumor cell lines and against normal cells (mice fibroblasts BALB/3T3) was comparable.