Improved antiulcer and anticancer properties of a trans-resveratrol analog in mice

Despite its potential, use of trans-resveratrol as an anticancer drug is severely constrained because of its tendency to prolong gastric ulceration. We found that in addition to delaying ulcer healing, trans-resveratrol also aggravated acute gastric ulceration induced by the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs by reducing the synthesis of prostaglandin (PG) E(2) via a specific inhibition of cyclooxygenase (COX)-1 that also hampered angiogenesis. However, for the first time, we showed that the 3'-5'-hydroxylated congener [(E)-HST-1] of trans-resveratrol, synthesized in multigram scale, exerted potential chemotherapeutic property but was nonulcerogenic in nature, rather moderately accelerated healing of indomethacin-induced gastric ulceration. HST-1 did not suppress COX-1, COX-2 expression, and PGE(2) synthesis but reduced the level of inflammatory myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity. The healing was augmented primarily through the nitric oxide synthase (NOS)-dependent pathway. HST-1 treatment induced endothelial NOS (eNOS) expression and reduced inducible NOS (iNOS), resulting in increased eNOS/iNOS ratio. The selective iNOS inhibitor [L-N(6)-(1-iminoethyl) lysine hydrochloride] and nonselective NOS inhibitor (N(omega)-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester) treatment revealed that eNOS could be the probable molecular switch to accelerate the indomethacin-induced ulcer healing in HST-1-treated mice. Furthermore, the anticancer effect of HST-1 on U937 and K562 leukemia cell lines was found to be significantly better than that of trans-resveratrol. Overall, these established HST-1 as a potentially better anticancer compound than trans-resveratrol, considering it is devoid of any ulcerogenic side effects. In conclusion, for the first time, we showed that a novel analog of trans-resveratrol, HST-1, was devoid of ulcerogenic adversative effects of trans-resveratrol but retained potentially better anticancer property.