Design, synthesis, anticancer, and docking of some S- and/or N-heterocyclic derivatives as VEGFR-2 inhibitors

Design, synthesis, and docking of novel thiazolidine-2,4-dione multitarget scaffold as new approach for cancer treatment

Novel thiazolidine-2,4-diones have been developed and estimated as conjoint inhibitors of EGFR^T790M and VEGFR-2 against HCT-116, MCF-7, A549, and HepG2 cells. Compounds 6a, 6b, and 6c were known to be the dominant advantageous congeners against HCT116 (IC₅₀  = 15.22, 8.65, and 8.80 µM), A549 (IC₅₀  = 7.10, 6.55, and 8.11 µM), MCF-7 (IC₅₀  = 14.56, 6.65, and 7.09 µM) and HepG2 (IC₅₀  = 11.90, 5.35, and 5.60 µM) mass cell lines, correspondingly. Although compounds 6a, 6b, and 6c disclosed poorer effects than sorafenib (IC₅₀  = 4.00, 4.04, 5.58, and 5.05 µM) against the tested cell sets, congeners 6b and 6c demonstrated higher actions than erlotinib (IC₅₀  = 7.73, 5.49, 8.20, and 13.91 µM) against HCT116, MCF-7 and HepG2 cells, yet lesser performance on A549 cells. The hugely effective derivatives 4e-i and 6a-c were inspected versus VERO normal cell strains. Compounds 6b, 6c, 6a, and 4i were found to be the most effective derivatives, which suppressed VEGFR-2 by IC₅₀  = 0.85, 0.90, 1.50, and 1.80 µM, respectively. Moreover, compounds 6b, 6a, 6c, and 6i could interfere with the EGFR^T790M performing strongest effects with IC₅₀  = 0.30, 0.35, 0.50, and 1.00 µM, respectively. What is more, 6a, 6b, and 6c represented satisfactory in silico computed ADMET profile.

Exploration of thiazolidine-2,4-diones as tyrosine kinase inhibitors: Design, synthesis, ADMET, docking, and antiproliferative evaluations

As dual EGFR and VEGFR-2 inhibitors, 22 innovative thiazolidine-2,4-diones were modeled, constructed, and measured for their anticancer performance versus four human neoplasms HCT-116, MCF-7, A549, and HepG2. Molecular docking and MD simulation were performed to inspect the binding technique of the proffered congeners with the EGFR and VEGFR-2 receptors. Evidence realized thanks to the docking inquests was vastly consistent together with that detected through the biological screening. Structures 14a and 14g emerged as the most active compounds toward HCT116 (IC₅₀  = 6.01 and 7.44 µM), MCF-7 (IC₅₀  = 5.77 and 7.23 µM), A549 (IC₅₀  = 5.35 and 5.47 µM) and HepG2 (IC₅₀  = 3.55 and 3.85 µM) tumefaction cells. Compounds 14a and 14g exhibited higher events than sorafenib (IC₅₀  = 5.05, 5.58, 4.04, and 4.00 µM) against HepG2 instead subordinate incidents concerning A549, MCF-7, and HCT116, parallelly. Nevertheless, these compounds signified weightier performance than erlotinib (IC₅₀  = 13.91, 8.20, 5.49, 7.73, and µM), with respect to the four cell lines. Compounds having the best activity against the four cell lines, 12a-f, 13a-d, and 14a-g were chosen to appraise their in vitro VEGFR-2 and EGFR^T790M inhibiting activities. The best results were for compounds 14a and 14g compared to sorafenib and erlotinib, respectively, with IC₅₀ values of 0.74 and 0.78 µM and 0.12 and 0.14 µM, respectively. Moreover, 13d, 14a, and 14g showed an adequate in silico calculated ADMET profile. The current investigation presents novel candidates for future optimization to construct mightier and eclectic binary VEGFR-2/EGFR^T790M restrainers with higher antitumor effects.

Design, Synthesis, and In Vitro Antiproliferative Screening of New Hydrazone Derivatives Containing cis-(4-Chlorostyryl) Amide Moiety

Hydrazones are regarded as a distinctive category of organic compounds because of their tremendous characteristics and potential uses in analytical, chemical, and medicinal chemistry. In the present study, a new series of Hydrazone Derivatives bearing cis-(4-chlorostyryl) amide moiety were designed and synthesized. In vitro cytotoxicity screening showed that compounds 3i, 3l, 3m, and 3n revealed potent anticancer activity against MCF-7 cancer cell line with IC50 values between 2.19–4.37 μM compared with Staurosporin as a reference compound. The antiproliferative activity of these compounds appears to be correlated well with their ability to inhibit the VEGFR-2 kinase enzyme. Activation of the damage response pathway leads to cellular cycle arrest at the G1 phase. Fluorochrome Annexin V/PI staining indicated that cell death proceeds through the apoptotic pathway mechanism. The mechanistic pathway was confirmed by a significant increase in the level of active caspase 9 compared with control untreated MCF-7 cells.

Design, synthesis, in silico docking, ADMET and anticancer evaluations of thiazolidine-2,4-diones bearing heterocyclic rings as dual VEGFR-2/EGFRT790M tyrosine kinase inhibitors

Fourteen recent thiazolidine-2,4-diones bearing furan and/or thiophene heterocyclic rings have been designed, synthesized and assessed for their anticancer activities against four human tumor cell lines HepG2, A549, MCF-7 and HCT-116 targeting both VEGFR-2 and EGFR tyrosine kinases. Molecular design was carried out to investigate the binding mode of the proposed compounds with VEGFR-2 and EGFR receptors. HepG2 was the most susceptible cell line to the influence of our derivatives. Compounds 5g and 4g revealed the highest activities against HepG2 (IC₅₀ = 3.86 and 6.22 μM), A549 (IC₅₀ = 7.55 and 12.92 μM), MCF-7 (IC₅₀ = 10.65 and 10.66 μM) and HCT116 (IC₅₀ = 9.04 and 11.17 μM) tumor cell lines. Sorafenib (IC₅₀ = 4.00, 4.04, 5.58 and 5.05 μM) and elotinib (IC₅₀ = 7.73, 5.49, 8.20 and 13.91 μM) were used as reference standards. Furthermore, the most active cytotoxic compounds 4d, 4e, 4f, 4g, 5d, 5e, 5f and 5g were selected to assess their VEGFR-2 inhibitory effects. Derivatives 5g, 4g and 4f were observed to be the highest effective derivatives that inhibited VEGFR-2 at the submicromolar level (IC₅₀ = 0.080, 0.083 and 0.095 μM respectively) in comparison to sorafenib (IC₅₀ = 0.084 μM). As well, compounds 4d, 4e, 4f, 4g, 5d, 5e, 5f and 5g were additionally assessed for their inhibitory activities against mutant EGFR^T790M. Compounds 5g and 4g could interfere with the EGFR^T790M activity exhibiting stronger activities than elotinib with IC₅₀ = 0.14 and 0.23 μM respectively. Finally, our derivatives 4g, 5f and 5g showed a good in silico calculated ADMET profile. The obtained results showed that our compounds could be useful as a template for future design, optimization, adaptation and investigation to produce more potent and selective dual VEGFR-2/EGFR^T790M inhibitors with higher anticancer activity.

New quinoxalin-2(1H)-one-derived VEGFR-2 inhibitors: Design, synthesis, in vitro anticancer evaluations, in silico ADMET, and docking studies

More than 70% of cancer patients who are treated with chemotherapeutics do not show a durable response. As part of the global plan seeking new effective chemotherapeutics, here, we report the synthesis and in vitro and computational studies of new lenvatinib and sorafenib analog quinoxalines as vascular endothelial growth factor receptor II (VEGFR-2) tyrosine kinase inhibitors. The central quinolone and pyridine moieties of the Food and Drug Administration-approved anticancer agents lenvatinib and sorafenib were replaced with the versatile quinoxaline scaffold that has been exploited for developing potent cytotoxic agents. With some minor structural optimizations, all the other pharmacophoric features of lenvatinib and sorafenib were maintained. Accordingly, three new sets of quinoxalines were synthesized to evaluate their activity against liver, colorectal, and breast malignancies. The results obtained in the in vitro cytotoxicity evaluation study revealed the superior activity of three derivatives (20, 25, and 29) compared with that of doxorubicin and sorafenib. Absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity (ADMET) profiling and docking of 20, 25, and 29 into the VEGFR-2 receptor were also performed. Results of in silico studies showed the potential of the designed compounds to bind effectively with a number of key residues. The obtained in vitro cytotoxic activity and ADMET profiles of compounds 20, 25, and 29 suggested that they should be subjected to further structural optimizations to develop new candidates in cancer treatment protocols.