In animal studies, daily intraperitoneal injections of WZB117 at 10 mg/kg body weight significantly reduce tumor sizes by more than 70% compared to tumors in mock-treated mice. Body weight measurements indicate that WZB117-treated mice experience a weight loss of about 1 to 2 grams, primarily from fat tissue, compared to mock-treated mice^[1].

WZB117 is a glucose transporter 1 (Glut1) inhibitor, which downregulates glycolysis, induces cell-cycle arrest, and inhibits cancer cell growth in vitro and in vivo^[1].

WZB117 impedes glucose transport into cancer cells in a dose-responsive manner as shown by glucose uptake assays. This blockage occurs rapidly, within 1 minute of assay initiation, indicating a direct and swift mode of action. Cell viability assays demonstrate WZB117's capacity to inhibit cancer cell proliferation with an IC50 value around 10 μM. Clonogenic assays further validate WZB117's suppressive effect on cancer cell growth, suggesting this effect is irreversible. WZB117 treatment leads to more pronounced growth inhibition in lung cancer A549 cells compared to non-tumorigenic NL20 lung cells, with similar trends observed between breast cancer MCF7 cells and non-tumorigenic MCF12A cells. Under hypoxic conditions, cancer cells exhibit increased sensitivity to WZB117 compared to normoxic conditions^[1].