Selective antimelanoma activity of selenilated α-hydroxyester

The selenilated α-hydroxyester LQ70 has shown potential for its antimelanoma activity in previous works of the research group¹ and was thus used as a starter for the synthesis of 7 new compounds, resulting in 8 selenilated α-hydroxyesters with the alcoholic chain in the ester moiety varying from 1 to 8 carbons using a simple Fisher esterification reaction. These compounds were synthesized with moderate yields, characterized via NMR, and then tested for its antimelanoma activity. For the biological assays, two cell lines were used, a human melanoma cell line (A375) and a non-tumoral human melanocyte cell line (NGM). Of all the selenilated α-hydroxyester tested, including LQ70, the α-hydroxyester with 5 carbons in the alcoholic chain (LQ76) has shown the higher selectivity among all the tested compounds, being at least 9 times more active for the melanoma cell line (IC₅₀ = 57.8 µM) than the melanocytes cell line (CC₅₀ > 500 µM).