Screening of synthetic chemical agents “chromenes” with potent anti-breast cancer activity

Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide. Conventional therapies cause serious side effects and, at best, merely extend the patient’s lifespan by a few years. Cancer control may therefore benefit from the potential that resides in alternative therapies. There is thus an increasing demand to utilize alternative concepts or approaches to the prevention of cancer. The principal aim of this research is to screen and identify new synthetic compounds “chromenes”, with high efficiency, for breast cancer therapy. In this study, we have screened four newly designed and synthesized chromenes (C1, C15, C28 and C29) for their potential anticancer activities against the highly aggressive and invasive triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells. We found that three (C1, C15 and C28) of the four tested chromenes exhibited a strong anti-proliferative activity against the MDA-MB-231 cells. Moreover, we found that chromenes exerts their anti-breast cancer effect through induction (i) of cell cycle arrest at the M phase confirmed by an increased expression of the M phase specific marker, p(ser10)H3 and (ii) activation of the apoptotic cell death program, revealed by increased levels of cleaved PARP , a marker of apoptosis. Further investigations are underway to elucidate the molecular mechanism(s) through which chrome exerts their effects. In conclusion, our current study provide preliminary evidences that chromenes could be a potential therapeutic compounds against the TNBC