Abstract (eng)
Despite the great progress in cancer treatment over the last decades, most patients still suffer from severe side effects during cancer therapy. One approach to decrease these side effects is the design of so-called tumor activatable prodrugs. Thus, a deactivated drug species is applied and specifically activated inside the tumor tissue. This type of prodrugs usually consists of three different moieties: a trigger unit which enables the selective release of the drug, a linker unit and the anti-cancer drug. This master thesis focused on two topics. The first topic is the development of a novel trigger system specific for cathepsin activation. Cathepsins are proteolytic enzymes which are known to be overexpressed in various types of cancer. Interestingly, despite the high number of different cathepsins, prodrug systems are currently only known for cathepsin B. The new concept comprises the use of highly specific fragments of cathepsin inhibitors as triggers which are connected to the drug via a self-immolative linker unit. This concept was developed in this master thesis for cathepsin K, a protease which is known to be expressed in bone metastases of breast and colon cancers. To this end, the modified inhibitor moiety was synthesized and connected to a para-aminobenzyl alcohol linker and a fluorophore in 11 steps. The final product was characterized by NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry and cleavage was studied by fluorescence spectroscopy.
The second topic of this master thesis was the development of a prodrug strategy for the anablastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor crizotinib. Crizotinib is approved for non-small cell lung cancer treatment, however, its application is limited by severe side effects like hepatic and gastrointestinal toxicity. Hence, a trigger system was attached to a position which is crucial for the drug-target interaction. The final release of the drug was investigated by HPLC measurements.