Huber R., Koval A., Marcourt L., Héritier M., Schnée S., Michellod E., Scapozza L., Katanaev V., Wolfender JL., Gindro K., Queiroz EF.
Chemoenzymatic Synthesis of Original Stilbene Dimers Possessing Wnt Inhibition Activity in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Cells Using the Enzymatic Secretome of Botrytis cinerea Pers.
The Wnt signaling pathway controls multiple events during embryonic development of
multicellular animals and is carcinogenic when aberrantly activated in adults. Breast cancer
and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in particular depend upon Wnt pathway
overactivation. Despite this importance, no Wnt pathway-targeting drugs are currently
available, which necessitates novel approaches to search for therapeutically relevant
compounds targeting this oncogenic pathway. Stilbene analogs represent an underexplored
field of therapeutic natural products research. In the present work, a library of
complex stilbene derivatives was obtained through biotransformation of a mixture of
resveratrol and pterostilbene using the enzymatic secretome of Botrytis cinerea. To
improve the chemodiversity, the reactions were performed using i-PrOH, n-BuOH,
i-BuOH, EtOH, or MeOH as cosolvents. Using this strategy, a series of 73 unusual
derivatives was generated distributed among 6 scaffolds; 55 derivatives represent novel
compounds. The structure of each compound isolated was determined by nuclear
magnetic resonance and high-resolution mass spectrometry. The inhibitory activity of
the isolated compounds against the oncogenic Wnt pathway was comprehensively
quantified and correlated with their capacity to inhibit the growth of the cancer cells,
leading to insights into structure-activity relationships of the derivatives. Finally, we have
dissected mechanistic details of the stilbene derivatives activity within the pathway.