New anti-cancer compounds are introduced

A team of researchers at the University of Kentucky's Markey Cancer Center has developed a new compound that promises to be a potential anti-cancer therapy
to treat aggressive tumors.

The study, led by Samuel G.
Awuah Ph.
D.
, was published in Chemical Communications, with Adedamola Arojojoye, a graduate student in Awuah's lab, as the first author
.

The new gold-derived compound, created by Awuah's lab, is toxic to cancer cells but well tolerated in mice, giving them the potential to develop new cancer drugs that could be used clinically
.

Many metal-based therapies have been shown to be effective against cancer, with platinum-based drugs being the first-line chemotherapy drugs
for testicular, bladder, lung, colon, and ovarian cancers.
Some metal-based compounds, such as gold (III), hold promise as anti-cancer drugs but lack the stability
needed to continue treatment development.
Awuah's lab synthesized a new gold(III) that has a different structure and is more tolerant
to therapeutic uses.

In the lab, new chiral gold(III) compounds were studied on a group of cancer cell lines to test their effectiveness and understand how they attack cancer
cells.

These compounds show anticancer activity
against aggressive triple-negative breast cancer cells.
They also possess a new mechanism
that leads to cellular mitochondrial dysfunction.

Developing drugs that cause mitochondrial dysfunction deprives cancer cells of energy, a new and related strategy that can inhibit cancer growth, in combination with
existing treatments, Awuah said.

"Continued development of gold-based compounds has the potential to generate new drug mechanisms of action, and understanding how they alter cancer cells is important for drug design and has clinical implications
," Awuah said.

Awuah is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences and holds a joint position
in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the College of Pharmacy.
His lab focuses on developing new methods to create chemical tools to interrogate complex biological processes as treatments for a variety of diseases, including cancer
.

Adedamola S.
Arojojoye, Jong H.
Kim, Chibuzor Olelewe, Sean Parkin, Samuel G.
Awuah.
Chiral gold(iii) complexes: speciation, in vitro, and in vivo anticancer profile.
Chemical Communications, 2022; 58 (73): 10237