Investigations of the Mechanism of Action for Lung Cancer Cell Death by a 4′‐Trifluoromethoxy Substituted Chalcone Derivative

Abstract

Chalcones are a diphenyl compound that serves as a natural precursor to flavanones in plants.Chalcones have been shown to have anticancer and antimicrobial activities. Chemoprevention activity of chalcones are of high interest in medicinal chemistry because of the simple laboratory synthesis and modification via aldol condensation. Previously this lab created and screened a library of synthetic chalcones against A549 lung adenocarcinoma cell line for antiproliferation properties. We identified a strong drug candidate (4′‐Trifluoromethoxy substituted chalcone) for A549 growth inhibition. However, the cause of inhibition by the substituted chalcone remains to be identified. We began to explore the mechanism of action of this drug by looking at physical characteristics of cell death with microscopy. Then, we conducted viability and cytotoxic assays such as MTS and Trypan blue for cell death quantification. Cytotoxicity was determined with a Lactate Dehydrogenase Assay. Western Blots were ran to identify dose dependency on the specific apoptotic proteins PARP and Caspase‐3. Using flow cytometry, we investigated a more accurate quantification of cells undergoing apoptosis versus necrosis. Here we present the results of our investigation into the apoptotic and necrotic cell death of lung cancer A549 cells by a chalcone derivative.Support or Funding InformationProject Funded by Bellarmine University Department of Chemistry and Physics and Bellarmine University Student Government Association.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.