Preface
Today, medicinal chemistry is still clearly dominated by organic chemistry, and most commercial drugs are purely organic molecules, which, besides carbon and hydrogen, can incorporate nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, phosphorus, and halogens, all of which are to the right of carbon in the periodic table, whereas boron is located to the left. Boron and carbon are elements that have the ability to build molecules of unlimited size by covalent self-bonding. However, commercial boron-based drugs are still rare. Bortezomib, tavaborole (AN2690), crisaborole (AN2728), epetraborole (AN3365), SCYX-7158 (AN5568), 4-(dihydroxyboryl)phenylalanine (BPA), and sodium mercapto-undecahydro-closo-dodecaborate (BSH) are used as drugs, the last two compounds in boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT). All of these boron-containing drugs are derivatives of boronic acids except BSH, which contains an anionic boron cluster. While the pharmacological uses of boron compounds have been known for several decades, recent progress is closely related to the discovery of further boron-containing compounds as prospective drugs. While first developments of the medicinal chemistry of boron were stipulated by applications in BNCT of cancers, knowledge accumulated during the past decades on the chemistry and biology of bioorganic and bioinorganic boron compounds laid the foundation for the emergence of a new area of study and application of boron compounds as skeletal structures and hydrophobic pharmacophores for biologically active molecules. These and other recent findings clearly show that there is still a great, unexplored potential in medicinal applications of boron-containing compounds.
This book summarizes the present status and further promotes the development of new boron-containing drugs and boron-based materials for diagnostics by bringing together renowned experts in the field of medicinal chemistry of boron compounds. It aims to provide a balanced overview of the vibrant and growing field of the emerging and potential applications of boron compounds in medicinal chemistry and chemical biology. The book is aimed at academics and professional researchers in this field, but also at scientists who want to get a better overview on the state of the art of this rapidly advancing area. It contains reviews of important topics, which are divided into three main sections: (1) "Design of New Boron-based Drugs", (2) "Boron Compounds in Drug Delivery and Imaging", and (3) "Boron Compounds for Boron Neutron Capture Therapy".
The first section, "Design of New Boron-Based Drugs", consists of six reviews dealing with the use of carborane derivatives for the development of novel drugs. In his review (Chapter 1.1), Yasuyuki Endo, one of the pioneers in the development of carboranes as hydrophobic pharmacophores almost 20 years ago, describes the development of a variety of potent nuclear receptor ligands with carborane structures as hydrophobic moieties. Nucleoside drugs have been in clinical use for several decades and have become cornerstones of treatment for patients with cancer or viral infections. One of the new developments in the medicinal chemistry of nucleosides is derivatives comprising a boron component such as a boron cluster, as described in the review by Zbigniew J. Lesnikowski and coworkers (Chapter 1.2), whose group has long-standing expertise in the introduction of boron clusters into molecules with diverse biological activity, where they serve as pharmacophores, building blocks, and modulators of the physicochemical and biological properties. An alternative approach to battling cancer is described by Hiroyuki Nakamura et al. in their chapter on the design of carborane-based hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) inhibitors (Chapter 1.3). Overexpression of HIF1a has been observed in human cancers, including brain, breast, colon, lung, ovary, and prostate cancers; thus, HIF1a is a novel target of cancer therapy, and the Nakamura group has shown carborane-based HIF1 inhibitors to be very promising targets. Another emerging type of boron-based drugs are metallacarboranes. The group of Evamarie Hey-Hawkins has been involved in carborane chemistry for more than 20 years. In Chapter 1.4, they report recent examples of biologically active half- and mixed-sandwich metallacarborane complexes of the dicarbollide ligand, as well as hybrid organic-inorganic compounds containing a nido-carborane(-1) as appended moiety. Their potentially beneficial properties, such as stability in aqueous environments and new binding modes due to their lipophilicity, are described. Prospective applications in radio-imaging, radiotherapy, and drug design are envisaged. In Chapter 1.5, Detlef Gabel and coworkers focus on ionic boron clusters that are soluble in water as well as in nonpolar solvents. This highly interesting feature sets them apart from other ionic and nonionic pharmacophores and renders them interesting new entities for drug design. The final review (Chapter 1.6) by Pavel Hobza, Martin Lepsík, and coworkers on the current status of structure-based computer-aided drug design tools for boron-cluster-containing protein ligands concludes this first section.
In the second section, the focus is on "Boron Compounds in Drug Delivery and Imaging". Satish S. Jalisatgi, a collaborator of Frederick Hawthorne, who was the pioneer of boron cluster chemistry almost 60 years ago, gives an overview of closomer drug delivery platforms based on an icosahedral polyhedral borane scaffold (Chapter 2.1). The resulting monodisperse nanostructures are capable of performing a combination of therapeutic, diagnostic, and targeting functions, which is highly useful for emerging applications. A complementary approach is described in the review by Clara Viñas Teixidor (Chapter 2.2), one of the founders of EuroBoron conference, and her colleagues. The anionic boron-based cobaltabis(dicarbollide) can form atypical monolayer membranes with the shape of vesicles and micelles with similar dimensions to those seen in nature, but of a very different chemical composition. These vesicles interact with liposomes and biological membranes to accumulate inside living cells. Their particular properties offer new opportunities for the development of nanoscale platforms to directly introduce new functionality for use in cancer therapy, drug design, and molecular delivery systems.
Diabetes is a chronic disease that has devastating human, social, and economic consequences. A tight control of blood glucose is the most important goal in dealing with diabetes. The majority of blood glucose monitoring tools relies on the glucose oxidase enzyme (GOx), but they have some drawbacks. A powerful approach for detecting glucose in fluids is the development of boronic acid-based saccharide sensors. The main principles of their design and factors governing their selectivity are discussed by Igor B. Sivaev and Vladimir I. Bregadze in Chapter 2.3.
Drug development is a lengthy process requiring identification of a biological target, validation of the target, and development of pharmacological agents designed and subsequently confirmed by in vivo studies. Molecular and functional imaging applied in the initial stages of drug development can provide evidence of biological activity and confirm on-target drug effects. In their contributions, Bhaskar C. Das et al. focus on various boron-containing molecular probes used in molecular imaging (Chapter 2.4), and Jordi Llop et al. provide an overview of nuclear imaging techniques, as well as the different radiolabeling strategies reported so far for the incorporation of positron and gamma emitters into boron clusters (Chapter 2.5). Finally, some illustrative examples on how radiolabeling and in vivo imaging can aid in the process of drug development are described, focusing on BNCT drug candidates containing boron clusters, linking this chapter to the third section dedicated to "Boron Compounds for Boron Neutron Capture Therapy".
Cancer is the second leading cause of death globally, and was responsible for 8.8 million deaths in 2015. Treatment typically comprises surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. BNCT is a unique binary therapy that was developed during the last five to six decades. With the availability of accelerator-based neutron sources at clinics, selective boron compounds for use in BNCT will become very important. In this third section, several novel classes of potential BNCT agents are described. Werner Tjarks critically reviews aspects of the design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of 3-carboranyl thymidine analogs (3CTAs) as boron delivery agents for BNCT over a time span of approximately 20 years (Chapter 3.1). Potential future non-BNCT applications of 3CTAs are also discussed, linking this review to the first section on boron-based drug design. Maria da Graça H. Vicente and Sunting Xuan describe different classes of third-generation boron delivery agents with enhanced tumor-localizing properties, which are under investigation for use in BNCT (Chapter 3.2), and the contribution by Valentina A. Ol'shevskaya and colleagues deals with synthetic approaches leading to tumor-selective boronated porphyrins and chlorins with potential applications in diagnosis, drug delivery, and treatment. This study emphasizes the role of boron in rendering the...