Fullerene Derivatives as Lung Cancer Cell Inhibitors: Investigation of Potential Descriptors Using QSAR Approaches.

Background: Nanotechnology-based strategies in the treatment of cancer have potential advantages because of the favorable delivery of nanoparticles into tumors through porous vasculature. Materials and Methods: In the current study, we synthesized a series of water-soluble fullerene derivatives and observed their anti-tumor effects on human lung carcinoma A549 cell lines. The quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) modeling was employed to investigate the relationship between anticancer effects and descriptors relevant to peculiarities of molecular structures of fullerene derivatives. Results: In the QSAR regression model, the evaluation results revealed that the determination coefficient r(2) and leave-one-out cross-validation q(2) for the recommended QSAR model were 0.9966 and 0.9246, respectively, indicating the reliability of the results. The molecular modeling showed that the lack of chlorine atom and a lower number of aliphatic single bonds in saturated hydrocarbon chains may be positively correlated with the lung cancer cytotoxicity of fullerene derivatives. Synthesized water-soluble fullerene derivatives have potential functional groups to inhibit the proliferation of lung cancer cells. Conclusion: The guidelines obtained from the QSAR model might strongly facilitate the rational design of potential fullerene-based drug candidates for lung cancer therapy in the future.