The use of photochemical transformations is a powerful strategy that allows for the formation of a high degree of molecular complexity from relatively simple building blocks in a single step. A central feature of all light-promoted transformations is the involvement of electronically excited states, generated upon absorption of photons. This produces transient reactive intermediates and significantly alters the reactivity of a chemical compound. The input of energy provided by light thus offers a means to produce strained and unique target compounds that cannot be assembled using thermal protocols. This review aims at highlighting photochemical transformations as a tool for rapidly accessing structurally and stereochemically diverse scaffolds. Synthetic designs based on photochemical transformations have the potential to afford complex polycyclic carbon skeletons with impressive efficiency, which are of high value in total synthesis.

Photochemical Approaches to Complex Chemotypes: Applications in Natural Product Synthesis

In every scientific undertaking that is to break new ground, one has to have a goal, a working hypothesis, or a leading idea or fact. This will encourage research and help in the pursuit of a worth-while objective, be it the enrichment of knowledge or the elaboration of a practical purpose. A medicinal scientist who hopes to find a new biologically active drug will have to be guided by such considerations.

Isosterism and bioisosterism in drug design.

Synthetic Aspects of the Di-pi-methane Rearrangement.

Ezrin is a multifunctional protein that connects the actin cytoskeleton to the extracellular matrix through transmembrane proteins. High ezrin expression is associated with lung metastasis and poor survival in cancer. We screened small molecule libraries for compounds that directly interact with ezrin protein using surface plasmon resonance to identify lead compounds. The secondary functional assays used for lead compound selection included ezrin phosphorylation as measured by immunoprecipitation and in vitro kinase assays, actin binding, chemotaxis, invasion into an endothelial cell monolayer, zebrafish and Xenopus embryonic development, mouse lung organ culture and an in vivo lung metastasis model. Two molecules, NSC305787 and NSC668394, that directly bind to ezrin with low micromolar affinity were selected based on inhibition of ezrin function in multiple assays. They inhibited ezrin phosphorylation, ezrin–actin interaction and ezrin-mediated motility of osteosarcoma (OS) cells in culture. NSC305787 mimicked the ezrin morpholino phenotype, and NSC668394 caused a unique developmental defect consistent with reduced cell motility in zebrafish. Following tail vein injection of OS cells into mice, both molecules inhibited lung metastasis of ezrinsensitive cells, but not ezrin-resistant cells. The small molecule inhibitors NSC305787 and NSC668394 demonstrate a novel targeted therapy that directly inhibits ezrin protein as an approach to prevent tumor metastasis.

Small molecule inhibitors of ezrin inhibit the invasive phenotype of osteosarcoma cells.

The prevalence and severity of drug-resistant malaria is emerging rapidly in the Amazon basin of Brazil. In support of clinical trials using the new antimalarial drug combination of atovaquone and proguanil, we performed in vitro drug sensitivities, molecular characterization of parasite populations using the circumsporozoite protein, merozoite surface antigen-1 (MSA-1), and MSA-2 markers, and an analysis of the Plasmodium falciparum multidrug resistance (pfmdr1) gene sequence and copy number in 26 isolates of P. falciparum obtained in a gold-mining endemic area in Peixoto de Azevedo, Mato Grosso State. All 26 isolates were found to be resistant to chloroquine (50% inhibitory concentration [IC50] = 100-620 nM) and sensitive to mefloquine (IC50 < 23 nM) and halofantrine (IC50 < 6 nM). The isolates also show reduced susceptibility to quinine (IC50 = 48-280 nM). Sequence analysis of the pfmdr1 gene revealed Asn, Phe, Cys, Asp, and Tyr in positions 86, 184, 1034, 1042, and 1246, respectively. These point mutations were similar to that previously described in other Brazilian isolates. Southern blot analysis revealed no amplification of the pfmdr1 gene. These results suggest that three different mechanisms for drug resistance exist for chloroquine, mefloquine, and quinine.

Robert E. Lutz

Papers

Antimalarials. 7. Bis(trifluoromethyl)-.alpha.-(2-piperidyl)-4-quinolinemethanols

Phenylated Dihydrofurans. Photo- and Acid-Catalyzed Rearrangements and Intermediacy in Cyclopropyl Ketone Cleavage

Novel Photocyclization of a Highly Phenylated β,γ-Unsaturated Ketone to a Cyclopropyl Ketone, Involving Benzoyl Group Migration

Antimalarials. IV. New synthesis of .alpha.-(2-pyridyl)- and .alpha.-(2-piperidyl)-2-aryl-4-quinolinemethanols

Solvent effects in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. II. Transmission of substituent effects by three-membered rings