1,2,3-Triazolyl ester of Ketorolac: A Click Chemistry-based highly potent PAK1-blocking cancer-killer

An old anti-inflammatory/analgesic drug called Toradol is a racemic form of Ketorolac (50% R-form and 50% S-form) that blocks the oncogenic RAC-PAK1-COX-2 (cyclooxygenase-2) signaling, through the direct inhibition of RAC by the R-form and of COX-2 by the S-form, eventually down-regulating the production of prostaglandins. However, due to its COOH moiety which is clearly repulsive to negatively-charged phospholipid-based plasma membrane, its cell-permeability is rather poor (the IC50 against the growth of human cancer cells such as A549 is around 13 mu M). In an attempt to boost its anti-cancer activity, hopefully by increasing its cell-permeability through abolishing the negative charge, yet keeping its water-solubility, here we synthesized a 1,2,3-triazolyl ester of Toradol through Click Chemistry. The resultant water-soluble azo derivative called 15K was found to be over 500 times more potent than Toradol with the IC50 around 24 nM against the PAK1-dependent growth of A549 cancer cells, inactivating PAK1 in cell culture with the apparent IC50 around 65 nM, and inhibiting COX-2 in vitro with the IC50 around 6 nM. Furthermore, the Click Chemistry boosts the anti-cancer activity of Ketorolac by 5000 times against the PAK1-independent growth of Bl6F10 melanoma cells. Using a multi-drug resistant (MDR) cancer cell line (EMT6), we found that the esterization of Ketorolac boosts its cell permeability by at least 10 folds. Thus, the Click Chemistry dramatically boosts the anti-cancer activity of Ketorolac, at least in three ways: increasing its cell-permeability, the anti-PAK1 activity of R-form and anti-COX-2 activity of S-form. The resultant 15K is so far among the most potent PAK1-blockers, and therefore would be potentially useful for the therapy of many different PAK1-dependent diseases/disorders such as cancers. (C) 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.