Breast cancer has the highest incidence and mortality in females, while prostate cancer has the second-highest incidence in males. Studies have shown that compounds from Brazilian green propolis have antitumor activities and can selectively inhibit the AKR1C3 enzyme, overexpressed in hormone-dependent prostate and breast tumors. Thus, in an attempt to develop new cytotoxic inhibitors against these cancers, three prenylated compounds, artepillin C, drupanin and baccharin, were isolated from green propolis to synthesize new derivatives via coupling reactions with different amino acids. All obtained derivatives were submitted to antiproliferative assays against four cancer cells (MCF-7, MDA MB-231, PC-3, and DU145) and two normal cell lines (MCF-10A and PNT-2) to evaluate their cytotoxicity. In general, the best activity was observed for compound 6e, derived from drupanin, which exhibited half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) of 9.6 ± 3 μM and selectivity index (SI) of 5.5 against MCF-7 cells. In silico studies demonstrated that these derivatives present coherent docking interactions and binding modes against AKR1C3, which might represent a possible mechanism of inhibition in MCF-7 cells.

乳腺癌在女性中的发病率和死亡率最高，而前列腺癌在男性中的发病率第二高。研究表明，巴西绿蜂胶中的化合物具有抗肿瘤活性，可以选择性地抑制在激素依赖性前列腺和乳腺肿瘤中过度表达的 AKR1C3 酶。因此，为了开发针对这些癌症的新细胞毒抑制剂，从绿蜂胶中分离出三种异戊二烯化化合物，青蒿素 C、drupanin 和 baccharin，通过与不同氨基酸的偶联反应合成新的衍生物。所有获得的衍生物都进行了针对四种癌细胞（MCF-7、MDA MB-231、PC-3 和 DU145）和两种正常细胞系（MCF-10A 和 PNT-2）的抗增殖试验，以评估它们的细胞毒性。一般来说，观察到化合物的最佳活性 如图6e所示，衍生自drupanin，其对MCF-7细胞的半数最大抑制浓度(IC ₅₀ )为9.6 ± 3 μM，选择性指数(SI)为5.5。 计算机 研究表明，这些衍生物呈现出针对 AKR1C3 的连贯对接相互作用和结合模式，这可能代表了 MCF-7 细胞中可能的抑制机制。