Synthesis, Structural Characterization and Anticancer Activity of New 5-Trifluoromethyl-2-thioxo-thiazolo[4,5-d]pyrimidine Derivatives

Thiazolo[4,5-d]pyrimidine derivatives are considered potential therapeutic agents, particularly in the development of anticancer drugs. In this study, new 7-oxo-(2a-e), 7-chloro-(3a-e) and also three 7-amino-(4a-c) 5-trifluoromethyl-2-thioxo-thiazolo[4,5-d]pyrimidine derivatives have been synthesized and evaluated for their potential anticancer activity. These derivatives were characterized by spectroscopic methods and elemental analysis, and the single-crystal X-ray diffraction was further performed to confirm a 3D structure for compounds 2e and 4b. The antiproliferative activity evaluation of twelve new compounds was carried out on a variety of cell lines including four human cancer (A375, C32, DU145, MCF-7/WT) and two normal cell lines (CHO-K1 and HaCaT). Four of them (2b, 3b, 4b and 4c) were selected by the National Cancer Institute and evaluated for their in vitro anticancer activity using the NCI-60 screening program. 7-Chloro-3-phenyl-5-(trifluoromethyl)[1,3]thiazolo[4,5-d]pyrimidine-2(3H)-thione (3b) proved to be the most active among the newly synthesized compounds.

Anti-Colon Cancer Activity of Novel Peptides Isolated from In Vitro Digestion of Quinoa Protein in Caco-2 Cells

Quinoa peptides are the bioactive components obtained from quinoa protein digestion, which have been proved to possess various biological activities. However, there are few studies on the anticancer activity of quinoa peptides, and the mechanism has not been clarified. In this study, the novel quinoa peptides were obtained from quinoa protein hydrolysate and identified by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS). The anticancer activity of these peptides was predicted by PeptideRanker and evaluated using an antiproliferative assay in colon cancer Caco-2 cells. Combined with the result of histone deacetylase 1 (HDAC1) inhibitory activity assay, the highly anticancer activity peptides FHPFPR, NWFPLPR, and HYNPYFPG were screened and further investigated. Molecular docking was used to analyze the binding site between peptides and HDAC1, and results showed that three peptides were bound in the active pocket of HDAC1. Moreover, real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), and Western blot showed that the expression of HDAC1, NFκB, IL-6, IL-8, Bcl-2 was significantly decreased, whereas caspase3 expression showed a remarkable evaluation. In conclusion, quinoa peptides may have the potential to protect against cancer development by inhibiting HDAC1 activity and regulating the expression of the cancer-related genes, which indicates that these peptides could be explored as functional foods to alleviate colon cancer.