RUDN chemist, along with colleagues from the RAS Institutes, simplified the synthesis of antitumor compounds
Many modern anticancer drugs are toxic, difficult to access and/or very expensive. Moreover, tumor cells may develop resistance to the drugs used. Therefore, researchers study the biological properties of molecules in order to obtain new antitumor drugs with optimal properties. One of the common approaches to the search for such drugs is testing of analogues of substances that already showed antitumor activity. Such substances include, in particular, isoxazole derivatives that inhibit — “turn off” — the Hsp90 protein, which is necessary for the survival of tumor cells. However, compounds of this class are inaccessible due to the complexity of the synthesis procedure, which requires, in particular, the complete absence of water molecules, and the reagents are expensive and toxic.
RUDN chemist Viktor Khrustalev and his colleagues developed a method for the synthesis of isomers of these substances, that is, the compounds that are identical in atomic composition but different in the arrangement of atoms in space. Easily accessible derivatives of arylnitromethanes and chloroacetamides were used as raw materials, and the reaction itself was carried out at temperatures not exceeding 80 degrees at atmospheric pressure and did not require anhydrous conditions.
The obtained substances had anticancer activity, but unlike the prototype compounds, they did not inhibit Hsp90 protein. Their mechanism of action is based on the destabilization of the cell division process as they prevent the formation of microtubules, which are important in the process of cell division.
Taxol derivatives, one of the most commonly used antitumor agents, have the same mechanism of action. Basing on the compounds obtained by the scientists, it is possible to create a substitute for an expensive, inaccessible and highly toxic derivatives of taxol in the treatment of cancer.
The work was published in European Journal of Organic Chemistry.
RUDN mathematicians investigated the possibility of combining 5 GNR technology and WiGig — a high-frequency range that allows you to transfer data at speeds up to 10 Gbps. This will smooth traffic fluctuations in 5Gnetworks and cope with user requests.
Scientists from the Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology RAS, RUDN University, St. Petersburg State University and the Tyumen Scientific Centre SB RAS studied the microbial communities from several lakes of the Yamal Peninsula. It turned out that methanotrophs (bacteria that use methane as a source of energy) consume methane more actively in the deep mature lakes of the peninsula than in small thermokarst lakes. In this regard, methane emissions into the atmosphere from the surface of deep lakes are low, and only small (relatively younger thermokarst lakes with constitutional ground ice) can make a significant contribution to methane emissions in the north of Western Siberia. Thus, bacteria perform an important function for the climate balance — they reduce the emission of methane into the atmosphere.
RUDN University physicists have described the conditions for the most efficient operation of long mirror-based variant of cyclotron in the autoresonance mode. These data will bring better understanding of plasma processes in magnetic traps.