Arylureas derived from colchicine: Enhancement of colchicine oncogene downregulation activity

Twenty-seven N,N′-disubstituted ureas containing a colchicine moiety an and aryl fragment have been synthetized and biologically evaluated. The cytotoxicity of the compounds, their ability to inhibit the expression of oncogenes related to telomerase activation and to the VEGF/VEGFR-2 autocrine process, such as c-MYC, hTERT and VEGF and their capability to downregulate c-MYC and VEGFR-2 proteins and the secretion of VEGF have been measured. In these biological evaluations, we have found that the change of the acetyl group in colchicines for an N-arylurea unit causes a great improvement in anticancer properties. The most promising derivatives were compounds 6 (o-Cl) and 14 (o,o-di-F) as they were able to downregulate all the tested targets at a concentration below their IC50 values. Thus, the arylurea unit enhances the potential of colchicine as an anticancer agent.363