Tellurium IV compounds as potential drugs for lung cancer treatment - Te4Lung

Abstract

The project is based on the preparation of a tellurium IV compound (Tel-One) which presented an expressive anticancer potential as a result of a preliminary exploratory investigation involving a myriad of organic chalcogens and between the most effective compounds, this one presented the most important activity which neglected toxicity for health cells. Higher antifungal actions for 3 strains of resistant fungi (human and phytopathogens) with hemolysis of less than 1% were also observed for Tel-One at concentration levels 30 times higher than their MIC. During this exploratory study, only in vitro assays were performed. In analytical studies of 125Te-NMR and Mass Spectrometry developed by the SelenoLife team, it was observed that when Tel-One is dissolved in culture media (aqueous) to perform the biological assays, it is immediately converted into a derivative (Tel-OH), which is probably formed by a hydrolysis mechanism. Thus, the production of both Tel-One and Tel-OH is necessary for biological assays to be conducted with both entities in order to determine the entity that refers to the biological action observed in the models studied. Considering that Tel-One present molar mass of 593 g/mol and that Tel-OH has mass on the order of 339 g/mol (determined by EM), we believe that the order of the molar concentration in which biological activities measurements are, still much lower than the number of tens of nmol/L (observed values for the biological tests), which makes the results obtained of great relevance and interest for both companies. Both compounds will be subjected to in vitro and in vivo biological assays in a more complete and comprehensive way so that the mechanisms and potentials of this class of compounds can be known for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. (AU)