In Vitro and In Vivo Evaluation of Tubulin Inhibitors with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Pre-Clinical Models

Synthetic small molecule tubulin inhibitors have many advantages as novel anti-cancer agents compared to the current tubulin inhibitors generated from natural products. Our previous studies led to the design and synthesis of a series of novel tubulin inhibitors. Some of these compounds also inhibited heat shock protein 27 (Hsp27), and showed promising in vitro anti-cancer activities in several breast cancer cell lines at sub nano-molar concentrations. However, whether these compounds could suppress tumor growth in animals was not investigated yet. In the current study, to identify the best drug candidates, therapeutic efficacy of the representative compounds from previous analyses was evaluated using non-small cell lung cancer preclinical models. These agents dose-dependently inhibited the growth of lung cancer cells in both monolayer cultures and three-dimensional multicellular spheroids. Several compounds also showed promising tumor growth suppressive activity in nude mice xenograft model.