Study on Anti-Proliferative Activity in Cancer Cells and Preliminary Structure-Activity Relationship of Pseudo-Peptide Chiral Thioureas

Conjugation as a Tool in Therapeutics: Role of Amino Acids/Peptides-Bioactive (Including Heterocycles) Hybrid Molecules in Treating Infectious Diseases

Peptide-based drugs are gaining significant momentum in the modern drug discovery, which is witnessed by the approval of new drugs by the FDA in recent years. On the other hand, small molecules-based drugs are an integral part of drug development since the past several decades. Peptide-containing drugs are placed between small molecules and the biologics. Both the peptides as well as the small molecules (mainly heterocycles) pose several drawbacks as therapeutics despite their success in curing many diseases. This gap may be bridged by utilising the so called 'conjugation chemistry', in which both the partners are linked to one another through a stable chemical bond, and the resulting conjugates are found to possess attracting benefits, thus eliminating the stigma associated with the individual partners. Over the past decades, the field of molecular hybridisation has emerged to afford us new and efficient molecular architectures that have shown high promise in medicinal chemistry. Taking advantage of this and also considering our experience in this field, we present herein a review concerning the molecules obtained by the conjugation of peptides (amino acids) to small molecules (heterocycles as well as bioactive compounds). More than 125 examples of the conjugates citing nearly 100 references published during the period 2000 to 2022 having therapeutic applications in curing infectious diseases have been covered.

Phosphonopeptides containing free phosphonic groups: recent advances

Phosphonopeptides are mimetics of peptides in which phosphonic acid or related (phosphinic, phosphonous etc.) group replaces either carboxylic acid group present at C-terminus, is located in the peptidyl side chain, or phosphonamidate or phosphinic acid mimics peptide bond. Acting as inhibitors of key enzymes related to variable pathological states they display interesting and useful physiologic activities with potential applications in medicine and agriculture. Since the synthesis and biological properties of peptides containing C-terminal diaryl phosphonates and those with phosphonic fragment replacing peptide bond were comprehensively reviewed, this review concentrate on peptides holding free, unsubstituted phosphonic acid moiety. There are two groups of such mimetics: (i) peptides in which aminophosphonic acid is located at C-terminus of the peptide chain with most of them (including antibiotics isolated from bacteria and fungi) exhibiting antimicrobial activity; (ii) non-hydrolysable analogues of phosphonoamino acids, which are useful tools to study physiologic effects of phosphorylations.

Design, Synthesis, and Cytotoxic Activity of 3-Aryl-N-hydroxy-2-(sulfonamido)propanamides in HepG2, HT-1080, KB, and MCF-7 Cells

A new series of (sulfonamido)propanamides (6a1-6a13, 6b1-6b15, 7c1-7c5, 6d1-6d5, 6e1-6e6) was designed and synthesized. All the synthesized compounds were characterized by NMR and mass spectrometry. The target compounds were evaluated for their in vitro cytotoxic activity against hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG2), fibrosarcoma (HT-1080), mouth epidermal carcinoma (KB), and breast adenocarcinoma (MCF-7) cell lines with the sulforhodamine B (SRB) assay, with gemcitabine and mitomycin C as positive controls. Most of these compounds exhibit a more potent cytotoxic effect than the positive control group on various cancer cell lines and the most potent compound, 6a7, shows the IC₅₀ values of 29.78±0.516 μm, 30.70±0.61 μm, and 64.89±3.09 μm in HepG2, HT-1080, KB, and MCF-7 cell lines, respectively. Thus, these compounds with potent cytotoxic activity have potential for development as new chemotherapy agents.