Coumarin as an Elite Scaffold in Anti-Breast Cancer Drug Development: Design Strategies, Mechanistic Insights, and Structure-Activity Relationships

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women. Currently, it poses a significant threat to the healthcare system due to the emerging resistance and toxicity of available drug candidates in clinical practice, thus generating an urgent need for the development of new potent and safer anti-breast cancer drug candidates. Coumarin (chromone-2-one) is an elite ring system widely distributed among natural products and possesses a broad range of pharmacological properties. The unique distribution and pharmacological efficacy of coumarins attract natural product hunters, resulting in the identification of numerous natural coumarins from different natural sources in the last three decades, especially those with anti-breast cancer properties. Inspired by this, numerous synthetic derivatives based on coumarins have been developed by medicinal chemists all around the globe, showing promising anti-breast cancer efficacy. This review is primarily focused on the development of coumarin-inspired anti-breast cancer agents in the last three decades, especially highlighting design strategies, mechanistic insights, and their structure-activity relationship. Natural coumarins having anti-breast cancer efficacy are also briefly highlighted. This review will act as a guideline for researchers and medicinal chemists in designing optimum coumarin-based potent and safer anti-breast cancer agents.

Chemistry of Phosphorus Ylides: Part 44 Reaction of 1-Trimethylsilyl-1H-Imidazole with Phosphorus Reagents. A Convenient Synthesis of Phosphorus Silyl Imidazoles

The reaction of 1-trimethylsilyl-1 H-imidazole with nucleophilic active phosphacumulenes afforded imidazole silyl phosphoranylidenes or imidazole phosphoranylidenes according to the reaction conditions. The reaction of hexaphenylcarbodiphosphorane with 1-trimethylsilyl-1 H-imidazole resulted in the formation of silyl phosphoranylidene phosphoranyl imidazole, silyl phosphoranylidene imidazole and triphenylphosphane. Moreover, Lawesson and Japanese reagents afforded imidazole phosphinothioic thioanhydrides.

Synthesis of novel pyrazole derivatives using organophosphorus, stibine, and arsine reagents and their antitumor activities

The reactions of 5-azido-3-methyl-1-phenyl-1H-pyrazole-4-carbaldehyde (azidopyrazole) with several classes of organophosphorus reagents: phosphonium ylides, Wittig-Horner reagents, dialkylphosphonates, trialkylphosphites, tris(dialkylamino)phosphanes, triphenylstibane, triphenylarsane, and Lawesson’s reagent are reported. Structural reasoning for the new products was based on compatible analytical and spectral data. The cytotoxic activity of most of the new products was evaluated against human breast carcinoma cell line (MCF7) and human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line(HepG2). Certain tested compounds showed promising results.