Tung-Kung Wu
National Chiao Tung University, Republic of China
Title: Enzymatic synthesis of steryl glycosides and their anticancer therapeutic applications
Biography
Biography: Tung-Kung Wu
Abstract
Steryl glycosides consist of a sterol/steroid aglycone and one or more sugar moieties linked through an ether or ester bond. Diverse biological activities, including anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, anti-microbial, anti-parasitic, and anti-tumor activities, and properties such as cell membrane modification, regulation of host defenses against pathogens, lipid metabolism, and developmental events, have been attributed to this family of natural products. Development of structural diverse steryl glycosides may hold potential to identify candidates for new drug development and pharmaceutical applications. In this study, we functionally express different glycosyltransferases for in vitro synthesis of steryl glycosides with a- or b-configuration specificity. The synthesized steryl glycosides were investigated for their anticancer activity. Interestingly, several steryl glycosides show dose-dependent depression of cell viability and enhanced drug effectiveness on MCF-7 breast cancer cells. The structure-reactivity relationships of these glycosyltransferases on substrate‒donor specificities and mode of action of steryl glycosides on anticancer activity will be discussed.