Inhibition of hypoxia‐inducible transcription factor complex with designed epipolythiodiketopiperazine

Designed small molecule inhibitors of hypoxia-inducible gene expression have potential to become new research tools for molecular biology, genetics and serve as leads to new therapeutics. We report design, synthesis evaluation of biological activity, and a preliminary mechanistic study of epipolythiodiketopiperazine (ETP) transcriptional antagonist that targets the interaction between the C-terminal transactivation domain (C-TAD) of hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) and cysteine-histidine rich region (CH1) of transcriptional coactivator p300/CBP. Our results indicate that in cultured cells synthetic ETP 3 disrupts the structure and function of this complex in a dose-dependent manner, resulting in rapid downregulation of hypoxia-inducible gene expression. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Biopolymers 95: 8–16, 2011.