Pyrrolotetrazinones deazaanalogues of temozolomide induce apoptosis in Jurkat cell line: involvement of tubulin polymerization inhibition.

Pyrrolotetrazinones are a new class of azolotetrazinones endowed with a high, remarkable antiproliferative activity in human tumor cultured cells. They hold the deaza skeleton of the antitumor drug temozolomide, although preliminary investigations indicated a different mechanism of action. To understand their mechanism(s) of action along with their target at molecular level, four derivatives were selected on the basis of their activity on a panel of human tumor cell lines and they were investigated in depth in a T leukemia cell line (Jurkat). Flow cytometric analysis of cell cycle after treatment with pyrrolotetrazinones has demonstrated that they were able to induce an arrest of the cell c…