By Kollegala Sharma
Mysore: Cancer drugs are generally toxic and result in serious side effects in patients. A group of Indian researchers have now redesigned one such drug to get new chemicals which themselves may be potential anti-cancer and anti-bacterial drugs.
The group has synthesized several new compounds from Sunitinib, a drug used for treating kidney cancers. At least one of them promises to be more effective than Sunitinib itself.
Although potent like other anti-cancer drugs Sunitinib causes serious side effects. Globally chemists are working to tweak its structure to improve its potency while trying to reduce toxic effects.
The chemical structure of Sunitinib has three parts – an indole-2 ring, a pyrrole structure and an N-diethylaminoethyl-substituted-carboxamide group. “The first two form the main body while the third forms the active limb of the compound. While other groups have been trying to modify the drug at the diethylaminoehtyl substituted carboxamide end, we looked at the indole-2 ring,” explained Sangeeta V. Jagtap, a member of the research team.
“We replaced the indole-2-ring with different chemical structures such as acids, amides and esters and carboxamide group with esters and carboxylic groups,” Dr Jagtap added. “The compounds where the carboxamide group was replaced with esters showed significant anti-cancer activity”. In all, 21 compounds, seven each containing one of the three chemical groups, have been synthesized. “We then determined their structure and verified them using nuclear magnetic resonance techniques,” she added.
