Amino acids as chiral derivatizing agents for antiproliferative substituted N-benzyl isoindolinones

NMR-Verified Dearomatization of 5,7-Substituted Pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidines

Tetrahydropyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine (THPP) is an attractive scaffold for designing biologically active compounds. The most obvious way to obtain such compounds is to reduce pyrazolopyrimidines with complex hydrides, because the pyrimidine ring is reduced in the preference over the pyrazole ring. The presence of substituents at positions five and seven of pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidines complicates the set of reaction products but makes it more attractive for medicinal chemistry because four possible stereoisomers can be formed during reduction. However, the formation of only syn-isomers has been described in the literature. This article is the first report on the formation of anti-configured isomers along with syn-isomers in the reduction of model 5,7-dimethylpyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine, which was confirmed by NMR. The bicyclic core in the syn-configuration was shown to be conformationally stable, which was used to estimate the long-range interproton distances using NOESY data. At the same time, long-range dipole-dipole interactions corresponding to a distance between protons of more than 6 Å were first registered and quantified. In turn, the bicyclic core in the trans-configuration represents a conformationally labile system. For these structures, an analysis of conformations observed in solutions was carried out. Our results indicate the significant potential of trans-configured tetrahydropyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidines for the development of active small molecules. While possessing structural lability due to the low energy of the conformational transition, they have the ability to adjust to the active site of the desired target.

Is It Possible to Obtain a Product of the Desired Configuration from a Single Knoevenagel Condensation? Isomerization vs. Stereodefined Synthesis

The biological activity of compounds directly depends on the three-dimensional arrangement of affinity fragments since a high degree of pharmacophore compliance with the binding site is required. 3-Benzylidene oxindoles are privileged structures due to their wide spectrum of biological activity, synthetic availability, and ease of modification. In particular, both kinase inhibitors and kinase activators can be found among 3-benzylidene oxindoles. In this work, we studied model compounds obtained via oxindole condensation with aldehydes and alkylphenones. These condensation products can exist in the form of E- and Z-isomers and also undergo isomerization in solutions. The factors causing isomeric transformation of these compounds were established. Comparative kinetic studies to obtain quantitative characteristics of UV-driven isomerization were first performed. The results obtained indicate dramatic differences in two subclasses, which should be considered when developing biologically active molecules.

Analysis of P-Glycoprotein Transport Cycle Reveals a New Way to Identify Efflux Inhibitors

P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is found to be of considerable interest for the design of drugs capable of treating chemoresistant tumors. This transporter is an interesting target for which an efficient approach has not yet been developed in terms of computer simulation. In this work, we use a combination of docking, molecular dynamics, and metadynamics to fully explore the states that occur during the capture of a ligand and subsequent efflux by P-gp. The proposed approach allowed us to substantiate a number of experimentally established facts, as well as to develop a new criterion for identifying potential P-gp inhibitors.

The First Highly Enantioselective Synthesis of 3-Sulfinyl-Substituted Isoindolinones Having Adjacent Carbon and Sulfur Stereocenters

A highly stereoselective access to 3-sulfinyl-substituted isoindolinones has been achieved by a tandem organocatalytic addition/cyclization reaction of 2-carbobenzyloxy-N-tosylbenzylidenimine with thiols and succeeding diastereoselective oxidation with MCPBA. First, enantioenriched isoindolinone N,S-acetals have been obtained through a dynamic kinetic asymmetric transformation induced by a bifunctional chiral thiourea organocatalyst. In turn, the newly created carbon stereocenter enabled a high diastereocontrol in the subsequent sulfoxidation. Based on DFT calculations, a theoretical rationale for the stereoselectivity of the oxidation reaction is also provided.

Establishment of drug-resistant cell lines under the treatment with chemicals acting through different mechanisms

The problem of chemoresistance development is an inescapable flipside of modern oncotherapy, in particular for сolorectal cancer patients. The search for or development of drugs effective against resistant tumors involves the use of model resistant cell lines in vitro. To obtain such lines, we reproduced the development of chemoresistance of human colon adenocarcinoma cells under the treatment with drugs of different mechanisms, a cytostatic (paclitaxel) and a targeted agent (Nutlin-3a, an inhibitor of p53-Mdm2 protein-protein interaction). In each case, we gradually increased the content of the substance in the medium, starting from effective concentrations that do not cause total cell death. When studying the lines resistant to the corresponding drug, we noted a reduced sensitivity to the drug of another mechanism of action. Analysis of the original and resistant lines showed that the cells use the universal efflux defense mechanism. The observed effect can be partially neutralized using inhibitors of the ABC transport proteins, including P-glycoprotein, known for its oncoprotective function. The role of the latter was confirmed by real-time RT-PCR and Western blotting.

Advanced palladium free approach to the synthesis of substituted alkene oxindoles via aluminum-promoted Knoevenagel reaction

A synthetic route for the synthesis of C24, as well as for the design of focused libraries of direct AMPK activators was developed based on a convergent strategy. The proposed scheme corresponds to the current trends in C-H bond functionalization. The use of aluminum isopropoxide for the Knoevenagel condensation of oxindole with benzophenones is a noticeable point of this work.