URD12: A urea derivative with marked antitumor activities

Abstract

Urea derivatives have been widely used in biology and medicine. The substituted urea derivative URD12 introduced in this study exhibits cytotoxic activity against the K562 human leukemia and KB human mouth epidermal carcinoma cell lines. To further study the bioactivity of URD12 and examine its feasibility as a new antitumor drug, we applied in vivo and in vitro assays to investigate the antitumor activity of URD12. URD12 was prepared and its cytotoxicity was evaluated using the BGC-823 human gastric carcinoma, MGC-803 human gastric carcinoma, SMMC-7721 human hepatoma and HepG2 human hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines using MTT assays. Antitumor activity in vivo was confirmed in mice bearing H22 hepatocellular carcinoma cells. Organ coefficient was used to further elucidate the cytotoxic mechanisms of URD12. URD12 inhibited the growth of tested tumor cell lines in vitro and the growth of H22 mouse hepatocellular carcinoma in vivo with no effects on the weight, spleen and thymus coefficient of tumor-bearing mice. In conclusion, our findings indicate that URD12 is an effective antitumor agent without evident immunosuppression effects.