TIE-2/VEGF-R2 SAR and in vitro activity of C3-acyl dihydroindazolo[5,4-a]pyrrolo[3,4-c]carbazole analogs

Recent development of multi-target VEGFR-2 inhibitors for the cancer therapy

Vascular epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (VEGFR-2), as an important tyrosine transmembrane protein, plays an important role in regulating endothelial cell proliferation and migration, regulating angiogenesis and other biological functions. VEGFR-2 is aberrantly expressed in many malignant tumors, and it is also related to the occurrence, development, and growth of tumors and drug resistance. Currently, there are nine VEGFR-2 targeted inhibitors approved by US.FDA for clinical use as anticancer drugs. Due to the limited clinical efficacy and potential toxicity of VEGFR inhibitors, it is necessary to develop new strategies to improve the clinical efficacy of VEGFR inhibitors. The development of multitarget therapy, especially dual-target therapy, has become a hot research field of cancer therapy, which may provide an effective strategy with higher therapeutic efficacy, pharmacokinetic advantages and low toxicity. Many groups have reported that the therapeutic effects could be improved by simultaneously inhibiting VEGFR-2 and other targets, such as EGFR, c-Met, BRAF, HDAC, etc. Therefore, VEGFR-2 inhibitors with multi-targeting capabilities have been considered to be promising and effective anticancer agents for cancer therapy. In this work, we reviewed the structure and biological functions of VEGFR-2, and summarized the drug discovery strategies, and inhibitory activities of VEGFR-2 inhibitors with multi-targeting capabilities reported in recent years. This work might provide the reference for the development of VEGFR-2 inhibitors with multi-targeting capabilities as novel anticancer agents.

Carbazole Derivatives as Kinase-Targeting Inhibitors for Cancer Treatment

Protein Kinases (PKs) are a heterogeneous family of enzymes that modulate several biological pathways, including cell division, cytoskeletal rearrangement, differentiation and apoptosis. In particular, due to their crucial role during human tumorigenesis and cancer progression, PKs are ideal targets for the design and development of effective and low toxic chemotherapeutics and represent the second group of drug targets after G-protein-coupled receptors. Nowadays, several compounds have been claimed to be PKs inhibitors, and some of them, such as imatinib, erlotinib and gefitinib, have already been approved for clinical use, whereas more than 30 others are in various phases of clinical trials. Among them, some natural or synthetic carbazole-based molecules represent promising PKs inhibitors due to their capability to interfere with PK activity by different mechanisms of action including the ability to act as DNA intercalating agents, interfere with the activity of enzymes involved in DNA duplication, such as topoisomerases and telomerases, and inhibit other proteins such as cyclindependent kinases or antagonize estrogen receptors. Thus, carbazoles can be considered a promising this class of compounds to be adopted in targeted therapy of different types of cancer.

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptors: drugs and new inhibitors

The recent launch onto the market of five VEGFR inhibitors indicates the therapeutic value of these agents and the importance of the research in the field of angiogenesis inhibitors for future oncologic therapy. In this Perspective we briefly report the inhibitors that are in clinical use, while we dedicate two wider sections to the compounds that are in clinical trials and to the new derivatives appearing in the literature. We especially consider the medicinal chemistry aspect of the topic and report the structure-activity relationship studies and the binding mode of some inhibitors as well as the biological data of the compounds discovered in the past 5 years.

Synthesis and biological profile of the pan-vascular endothelial growth factor receptor/tyrosine kinase with immunoglobulin and epidermal growth factor-like homology domains 2 (VEGF-R/TIE-2) inhibitor 11-(2-methylpropyl)-12,13-dihydro-2-methyl-8-(pyrimidin-2-ylamino)-4H-indazolo[5,4-a]pyrrolo[3,4-c]carbazol-4-one (CEP-11981): a novel oncology therapeutic agent

A substantial body of evidence supports the utility of antiangiogenesis inhibitors as a strategy to block or attenuate tumor-induced angiogenesis and inhibition of primary and metastatic tumor growth in a variety of solid and hematopoietic tumors. Given the requirement of tumors for different cytokine and growth factors at distinct stages of their growth and dissemination, optimal antiangiogenic therapy necessitates inhibition of multiple, complementary, and nonredundant angiogenic targets. 11-(2-Methylpropyl)-12,13-dihydro-2-methyl-8-(pyrimidin-2-ylamino)-4H-indazolo[5,4-a]pyrrolo[3,4-c]carbazol-4-one (11b, CEP-11981) is a potent orally active inhibitor of multiple targets (TIE-2, VEGF-R1, 2, and 3, and FGF-R1) having essential and nonredundant roles in tumor angiogenesis and vascular maintenance. Outlined in this article are the design strategy, synthesis, and biochemical and pharmacological profile for 11b, which completed Phase I clinical assessing safety and pharmacokinetics allowing for the initiation of proof of concept studies.

Combined 3D-QSAR and Docking Modelling Study on Indolocarbazole Series Compounds as Tie-2 Inhibitors

Tie-2, a kind of endothelial cell tyrosine kinase receptor, is required for embryonic blood vessel development and tumor angiogenesis. Several compounds that showed potent activity toward this attractive anticancer drug target in the assay have been reported. In order to investigate the structure-activity correlation of indolocarbazole series compounds and modify them to improve their selectivity and activity, 3D-QSAR models were built using CoMFA and CoMSIA methods and molecular docking was used to check the results. Based on the common sketch align, two good QSAR models with high predictabilities (CoMFA model: q² = 0.823, r² = 0.979; CoMSIA model: q² = 0.804, r² = 0.967) were obtained and the contour maps obtained from both models were applied to identify the influence on the biological activity. Molecular docking was then used to confirm the results. Combined with the molecular docking results, the detail binding mode between the ligands and Tie-2 was elucidated, which enabled us to interpret the structure-activity relationship. These satisf actory results not only offered help to comprehend the action mechanism of indolocarbazole series compounds, but also provide new information for the design of new potent inhibitors.

Anti-tumor effects of a novel chimeric peptide on S180 and H22 xenografts bearing nude mice

In recent years, many endogenous peptides have been identified by screening combinatory phage display peptide library, which play important roles in the process of angiogenesis. A heptapeptide, ATWLPPR, binds specifically to NRP-1 and selectively inhibits VEGF165 binding to VEGFR-2. Another heptapeptide, NLLMAAS, blocks both Ang-1 and Ang-2 binding to Tie-2 in a dose-dependent manner. In the present study, we aimed to connect ATWLPPR (V1) with NLLMAAS (V2) via a flexible linker, Ala-Ala, to reconstruct a novel peptide ATWLPPRAANLLMAAS (V3). We firstly investigated the anti-tumor and anti-angiogenic effects of peptide V3 on sarcoma S180 and hepatoma H22 bearing BALB/c nude mice. Mice were continuously subcutaneously administrated with normal saline, V1 (320microg/kg/d), V2 (320microg/kg/d), V1+V2 (320microg/kg/d), and V3 (160, 320 and 480microg/kg/d), for 7 days. Treatment with peptide V3 could significantly reduce the tumor weight and volume. Pathological examination showed that the tumors treated with peptide V3 had a larger region of necrosis than that of peptide V1, V2, and V1+V2 at the same dose. A significant decrease of microvessel density (MVD) in a dose-dependent manner was observed in each group of peptide V3. The results of pathological examination on normal tissue, lung, heart, liver, spleen, kidney and white blood cells showed that peptide V3 might have no significant toxicity. In conclusion, our results demonstrated that peptide V3 could be more effective on inhibiting tumor growth and angiogenesis than that of V1, V2, and V1+V2. Peptide V3 could be considered as a novel chimeric peptide with potent anti-tumor activity.