Arylureas derived from colchicine: Enhancement of colchicine oncogene downregulation activity

Our efforts to get therapeutically useful colchicine derivatives for the treatment of Cancer have led us to synthetize and biologically evaluate twenty-seven N,N'-disubstituted ureas containing a colchicine moiety and an aryl fragment. The cytotoxicity of the compounds, their ability to inhibit the expression of oncogenes related to Telomerase activation and to the VEGF/VEGFR-2 autocrine process, such as c-Myc, hTERT and VEGF and their capability to downregulate c-Myc and VEGFR-2 proteins and the secretion of VEGF have been measured. In these biological evaluations, we have found that the change of the acetyl group in colchicines for an N-arylurea unit causes a great improvement in Anticancer properties. The most promising derivatives were compounds 6 (o-Cl) and 14 (o,o-di-F) as they were able to downregulate all the tested targets at a concentration below their IC₅₀ values. Thus, the arylurea unit enhances the potential of colchicine as an Anticancer agent.