A nitrocarbazole as a new microtubule-targeting agent in breast cancer treatment

Abstract

Breast cancer is still considered a high-incidence disease, and numerous are the research efforts for the development of new useful and effective therapies. Among anticancer drugs, carbazole compounds are largely studied for their anticancer properties and their ability to interfere with specific targets, such as microtubule components. The latter are involved in vital cellular functions, and the perturbation of their dynamics leads to cell cycle arrest and subsequent apoptosis. In this context, we report the anticancer activity of a series of carbazole analogues 1–8. Among them, 2-nitrocarbazole 1 exhibited the best cytotoxic profile, showing good anticancer activity against two breast cancer cell lines, namely MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231, with IC50 values of 7 ± 1.0 and 11.6 ± 0.8 µM, respectively. Furthermore, compound 1 did not interfere with the growth of the normal cell line MCF-10A, contrarily to Ellipticine, a well-known carbazole derivative used as a reference molecule. Finally, in vitro immunofluorescence analysis and in silico studies allowed us to demonstrate the ability of compound 1 to interfere with tubulin organization, similarly to vinblastine: a feature that results in triggering MCF-7 cell death by apoptosis, as demonstrated using a TUNEL assay.