Rapana thomasiana hemocyanin modified with ionic liquids with enhanced anti breast cancer activity

This is the first study on the surface modification of a hemocyanin from marine snail Rapana thomasiana (RtH) with series of imidazolium-based amino acid ionic liquids [emim][AA]. We monitored the induced by [emim][AA] conformational changes in RtH molecule and evaluated the effect of these ionic liquids (ILs) on the protein thermal stability. The cytotoxicity of all obtained RtH-[emim][AA] complexes was assessed toward breast cancer cells (MCF-7) and murine fibroblasts (3T3). As a whole, even small amounts of the tested ILs altered the secondary structure of RtH. The thermal denaturation of RtH in presence of [emim][AA] displayed multi-component transitions, which were shifted toward lower temperatures in comparison to those estimated for the native RtH. The profiles of the RtH-IL calorimetric curves show a clear dependence on the structure of the added salts. In addition, all RtH-[emim][AA] complexes exhibited an enhanced antiprofilerative activity of toward MCF-7 cells in comparison to that of the native RtH. The best results are observed for RtH-[emim][Leu], RtH-[emim][Trp] or RtH-[emim][Ile], which applied in concentration of 700 μg/mL inhibited the MCF-7 cell viability (for 24h) by 66, 63 and 53%, respectively. In addition, these IL-RtH complexes were less cytotoxic to 3T3 cells, i.e. they exhibited some cell specificity.