Biological Evaluation of a Novel 2’-Fluoro Derivative 5-Azacytidine as a Potent DNA Methyltransferase Inhibitor

Abstract

Background: DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs) are key epigenetic regulatory enzymes involved in the expression of many genes and are considered as an attractive target for cancer treatment, especially hematological malignancies. Therefore, promising DNMT inhibitors characterized by low toxicity, target activity and high selectivity are crucial for the development of new cancer therapy and research on the inhibitory mechanism. We had previously demonstrated that the novel 2’-fluoro-2’-deoxy-arabinofuranosyl 5-azacytosine nucleoside (2’F-araAC) showed high antiproliferative activity in vitro and increased hydrolytic stability compared to the known agents like azacitidine and decitabine. Objective: The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of novel 2’F-araAC as potent anti-leukemia agent and DNMTs inhibitor on nuclear extract of the HCT-116 human colorectal cell line and P388 and L1210 mouse leukemia cell lines. Methods : The DNMTs activity was evaluated using the fluorometric DNMT Activity Quantification Kit (Abcam) and were reported as the percentage of control. Nuclear proteins were extracted from HCT-116 cell line using the Nuclear Extraction Kit (Abcam). To explore the mechanism of anti-leukemic activity of 2’F-araAC, cell cycle and apoptosis analyses were performed on P388 and L1210 cell lines. Results: It has been shown that the DNMTs activity was significantly reduced at 1 and 10 µM of 2’F-araAC compared to controls. Moreover, 2’F-araAC can induce G2/M cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in P388 and L1210 mouse leukemia cell lines as shown by flow cytometry method. Apoptosis was 54.53% and 43.35% for 2’F-araAC vs. 2.88% and 5.25% for the control P388 and L1210 cell lines, respectively. Conclusions: Thus, our study presents a new and promising compound to further develop new epigenetic regulators to be used as antitumor agents.