Design, Synthesis, and Biological Evaluation of New Urushiol Derivatives as Potent Class I Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors

Abstract In the present study, a novel series of 11 urushiol‐based hydroxamic acid histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors was designed, synthesized, and biologically evaluated. Compounds 1–11 exhibited good to excellent inhibitory activities against HDAC1/2/3 (IC50: 42.09–240.17 nM) and HDAC8 (IC50: 16.11–41.15 nM) in vitro, with negligible activity against HDAC6 (>1409.59 nM). Considering HDAC8, docking experiments revealed some important features contributing to inhibitory activity. According to Western blot analysis, select compounds could notably enhance the acetylation of histone H3 and SMC3 but not‐tubulin, indicating their privileged structure is appropriate for targeting class I HDACs. Furthermore, antiproliferation assays revealed that six compounds exerted greater in vitro antiproliferative activity against four human cancer cell lines (A2780, HT‐29, MDA‐MB‐231, and HepG2, with IC50 values ranging from 2.31–5.13 μM) than suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid; administration of these compounds induced marked apoptosis in MDA‐MB‐231 cells, with cell cycle arrest in the G2/M phase. Collectively, specific synthesized compounds could be further optimized and biologically explored as antitumor agents.