Synthesis and biological evaluation of oxindole linked indolyl-pyrimidine derivatives as potential cytotoxic agents

Design, Synthesis and Molecular Modeling of Pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine Derivatives as Dual Inhibitors of CDK2 and TRKA Kinases with Antiproliferative Activity

BACKGROUND

The increasing prevalence of drug resistance in cancer therapy underscores the urgent need for novel therapeutic approaches. Dual enzyme inhibitors, targeting critical kinases such as CDK2 and TRKA, represent a promising strategy. The goal of this investigation was to design, synthesize, and evaluate a set of pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine derivatives for their dual inhibition potential toward CDK2 and TRKA kinases, along with their potential antiproliferative against cancer cell lines.

METHODS

A set of pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine derivatives (6a-t, 11a-g, and 12) was synthesized and subjected to in vitro enzymatic assays to determine their inhibitory activity against CDK2 and TRKA kinases. Selected compounds were further assessed for antiproliferative effects across the set of 60 cell lines from the NCI, representing various human cancer types. Additionally, simulations of molecular docking were conducted to explore the modes of binding for the whole active compounds and compare them with known inhibitors.

RESULTS

Compounds 6t and 6s exhibited potent dual inhibitory activity, showing an IC50 = 0.09 µM and 0.23 µM against CDK2, and 0.45 µM against TRKA, respectively. These results were comparable to reference inhibitors ribociclib (CDK2, IC50 = 0.07 µM) and larotrectinib (TRKA, IC50 = 0.07 µM). Among the studied derivatives, compound 6n displayed a notable broad-spectrum anticancer activity, achieving a mean growth inhibition (GI%) of 43.9% across 56 cell lines. Molecular docking simulations revealed that the synthesized compounds adopt modes of binding similar to those of the lead inhibitors. Conclusions: In this study, prepared pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine derivatives demonstrated significant potential as dual CDK2/TRKA inhibitors, and showed potent anticancer activity toward diverse cancer cell lines. These findings highlight their potential as key compounds for the design of novel anticancer therapeutics.

Solid-State Luminescent Materials Containing Both Indole and Pyrimidine Moieties: Design, Synthesis, and Density Functional Theory Calculations

Heterocyclic compounds with effective solid-state luminescence offer a wide range of uses. It has been observed that combining pyrimidine and indole moieties in a single molecule can enhance material behavior dramatically. Here, different heterocyclic compounds with indole and pyrimidine moieties have been synthesized effectively, and their structures have been validated using NMR, IR, and mass spectroscopy. The photoluminescence behavior of two substances was investigated in powder form and solutions of varying concentrations. After aggregation, one molecule displayed a redshifted luminescence spectrum, whereas another homolog showed a blueshift. Thus, density functional theory calculations were carried out to establish that introducing a terminal group allows modifying of the luminescence behavior by altering the molecular packing. Because of the non-planarity, intermolecular interactions, and tiny intermolecular distances within the dimers, the materials demonstrated a good emission quantum yield (Φ_em) in the solid state (ex. 25.6%). At high temperatures, the compounds also demonstrated a stable emission characteristic.

Contribution of Knoevenagel Condensation Products towards Development of Anticancer Agents: An Updated Review

Knoevenagel condensation is an entrenched, prevailing, prominent arsenal following greener principles in the generation of α, β-unsaturated ketones/carboxylic acids by involving carbonyl functionalities and active methylenes. This reaction has proved to be a major driving force in many multicomponent reactions indicating the prolific utility towards the development of biologically fascinating molecules. This eminent reaction was acclimatised on different pharmacophoric aldehydes (benzimidazole, β-carboline, phenanthrene, indole, imidazothiadiazole, pyrazole etc.) and active methylenes (oxindole, barbituric acid, Meldrum's acid, thiazolidinedione etc.) to generate the library of chemical compounds. Their potential was also explicit to understand the significance of functionalities involved, which thereby evoke further developments in drug discovery. Furthermore, most of these reaction products exhibited remarkable anticancer activity in nanomolar to micromolar ranges by targeting different cancer targets like DNA, microtubules, Topo-I/II, and kinases (PIM, PARP, NMP, p300/CBP) etc. This review underscores the efficiency of the Knoevenagel condensation explored in the past six-year to generate molecules of pharmacological interest, predominantly towards cancer. The present review also provides the aspects of structure-activity relationships, mode of action and docking study with possible interaction with the target protein.

Oxindole and its derivatives: A review on recent progress in biological activities

Oxindole has been shown to be a pharmacologically advantageous scaffold having many biological properties that are relevant to medicinal chemistry. The simplicity and widespread occurrence of this scaffold in plant-based alkaloids have further reinforced oxindole's merit in the domain of novel drug discovery. First extracted from Uncaria tomentosa, commonly the known as cat claw's plant which was found abundantly in the Amazon rainforest, molecules with the oxindole moiety have been shown to be common in a wide variety of compounds extracted from plant sources. The role of oxindole as a chemical scaffold for fabricating and designing biological drugs agents can be ascribed to its ability to be modified by a number of chemical groups to generate novel biological functions. This review is aimed at providing a description of the general chemistry based on existing corresponding structure-activity relationships (SARs) and compile all recent developmentary studies on oxindole-derived compounds as a successful pharmaceutical agent. A substantial group of oxindole derivatives are chiefly being tested as anticancer agents, however, a several oxindole derivatives have been shown to possesses antimicrobial, α-glucosidase inhibitory, antiviral, antileishmanial, antitubercular, antioxidative, tyrosinase inhibitory, PAK4 inhibitory, antirheumatoid arthritis and intraocular pressure reducing activities, to name a few. In this review we show the potential value of developing newer oxindole derivatives with an improved range of pharmacological implications as well as identifying drugs possessing oxindole core, that are showing and serving increased efficacy in clinical practice.

Discovery of highly potent tubulin polymerization inhibitors: Design, synthesis, and structure-activity relationships of novel 2,7-diaryl-[1,2,4]triazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidines

By removing 5-methyl and 6-acetyl groups in our previously reported compound 3, we designed a series of novel 2,7-diaryl-[1,2,4]triazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine derivatives as potential tubulin polymerization inhibitors. Among them, compound 5e displayed low nanomolar antiproliferative efficacy on HeLa cells which was 166-fold higher than the lead analogue 3. Interestingly, 5e displayed significant selectivity in inhibiting cancer cells over HEK-293 (normal human embryonic kidney cells). In addition, 5e dose-dependently arrested HeLa in G2/M phase through the alterations of the expression levels of p-cdc2 and cyclin B1, and caused HeLa cells apoptosis by regulation of expressions of cleaved PARP. Further evidence demonstrated that 5e effectively inhibited tubulin polymerization and was 3-fold more powerful than positive control CA-4. Moreover, molecular docking analysis indicated that 5e overlapped well with CA-4 in the colchicine-binding site. These studies demonstrated that 2,7-diaryl-[1,2,4]triazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine skeleton might be used as the leading unit to develop novel tubulin polymerization inhibitors as potential anticancer agents.

Recent Development in Indole Derivatives as Anticancer Agents for Breast Cancer

BACKGROUND

Breast Cancer (BC) is the second most common cause of cancer related deaths in women. Due to severe side effects and multidrug resistance, current therapies like hormonal therapy, surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy become ineffective. Also, the existing drugs for BC treatment are associated with several drawbacks such as poor oral bioavailability, non-selectivity and poor pharmacodynamics properties. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the development of more effective and safer anti BC agents.

OBJECTIVE

This article explored in detail the possibilities of indole-based heterocyclic compounds as anticancer agents with breast cancer as their major target.

METHODS

Recent literature related to indole derivatives endowed with encouraging anti BC potential is reviewed. With special focus on BC, this review offers a detailed account of multiple mechanisms of action of various indole derivatives: aromatase inhibitor, tubulin inhibitor, microtubule inhibitor, targeting estrogen receptor, DNA-binding mechanism, induction of apoptosis, inhibition of PI3K/AkT/NFkB/mTOR, and HDAC inhibitors, by which these derivatives have shown promising anticancer potential.

RESULTS

Exhaustive literature survey indicated that indole derivatives are associated with properties of inducing apoptosis and disturbing tubulin assembly. Indoles are also associated with the inhibition of NFkB/mTOR/PI3K/AkT and regulation of estrogen-mediated activity. Furthermore, indole derivatives have been found to modulate critical targets such as topoisomerase and HDAC. These derivatives have shown significant activity against breast cancer cells.

CONCLUSION

In BC, indole derivatives seem to be quite competent and act through various mechanisms that are well established in case of BC. This review has shown that indole derivatives can further be explored for the betterment of BC chemotherapy. A lot of potential is still hidden which demands to be discovered for upgrading BC chemotherapy.

Synthesis and in-vitro anti-proliferative evaluation of some pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidines as novel larotrectinib analogs

A series of 2-phenyl-7-(aryl)pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine-3-carbonitriles 11a-j and 2-phenyl-7-(aryl)pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine-3,6-dicarbonitriles 16a-c was synthesized by the reaction of 5-amino-3-phenyl-1H-pyrazole-4-carbonitrile (5) with 3-(dimethylamino)-1-arylprop-2-en-1-ones 6a-j or 2-aryl-3-(dimethylamino)acrylonitriles 12a-c, respectively. In addition, 7-amino-5-oxo-2-phenyl-4,5-dihydropyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine-3-carbonitrile (22) was prepared from the reaction of compound 5 with ethyl cyanoacetate. The anticancer activity of the newly synthesized compounds against Huh-7, HeLa, MCF-7 and MDA-MB231 cell lines showed moderate activity of compound 11f as anti-proliferative agent against Huh-7 cell line with IC₅₀ = 6.3 µM when compared with doxorubicin (IC₅₀ = 3.2 µM). On the other hand, compound 16b revealed potent anti-proliferative activity against HeLa cell line with IC₅₀ = 7.8 µM when compared with doxorubicin (IC₅₀ = 8.1 µM). Also compound 11i exhibited a promising anti-proliferative activity against MCF-7 cell line (IC₅₀ = 3.0 µM) whereas IC₅₀ of doxorubicin = 5.9 µM, finally compounds 11i and 16b have potent activity as anti-proliferative agents against MDA-MB231 cell line with IC₅₀ = 4.32 and 5.74 µM, respectively when compared with doxorubicin (IC₅₀ = 6.0 µM).

A Review on Synthesis, Anticancer and Antiviral Potentials of Pyrimidine Derivatives

Background:

Pyrimidine is the six membered heterocyclic aromatic compound similar to benzene and pyridine containing two nitrogen atoms at 1st and 3rd positions. Pyrimidine is present throughout nature in various forms and is the building blocks of numerous natural compounds from antibiotics to vitamins and liposacharides. The most commonly recognized pyrimidines are the bases of RNA and DNA, the most abundant being cytosine, thymine or uracil.

Results:

Pyrimidine is a core structure in a wide variety of compounds that exhibits significant biological activity and also plays an important role in the drug discovery process. Various synthetic aspects indicated that pyrimidine derivatives are easy to synthesize and has diverse biological and chemical applications. The present review article aims to review the work reported on synthesis, anticancer and antiviral potentials of pyrimidine derivatives during new millennium.

Conclusion:

It may be concluded that the fused pyrimidine derivatives enhanced the anticancer potential against different human cancer cell lines and antiviral potential against different human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) etc, which created interest among the medicinal chemists in the pyrimidine skeleton in medicinal chemistry. Thus, a tremendous scope for research is present in this direction for investigating pyrimidine derivatives as lead molecules.

Design, Synthesis, and Biological Evaluation of Triazolyl- and Triazinyl-Quinazolinediones as Potential Antitumor Agents

Novel 6(3-1H-1,2,4-triazol-1-yl)-3-phenylquinazoline-2,4(1H,3H)-diones (7a–e) were synthesized from different enaminones (6a–e) with 6-hydrazinyl-3-phenylquinazoline-2,4(1H,3H)-dione. 2,6(4-2-Substituted-1,3,5-triazin-1(2H)-yl)-3-phenylquinazoline-2,4(1H,3H)-diones (8a–k) were synthesized from the reaction of 1-(2,4-dioxo-3-phenyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinazolin-6-yl)thiourea, urea, or guanidine (3a–c) with enaminones (6a–e), and a series from 3-substituted-2-imino-1,3,5-triazin-1(2H)-yl-sulfonyl-phenyl-1-methylquinazoline-2,4(1H,3H)-dione (12a–j) were obtained from the reaction of N-(diaminomethylene)-4-(1-methyl-2,4-dioxo-1,2-dihydroquinazolin-3(4H)-yl)benzenesulfonamide (11) with the enaminone (6a–j). The antitumor activity of the synthesized compounds was evaluated against two human cell lines: human colon carcinoma HCT116 and human hepatocellular carcinoma HEP-G2. Some of the tested compounds showed significant potency compared to the reference drug staurosporin.

Design, synthesis and antimicrobial evaluation of pyrimidin-2-ol/thiol/amine analogues

Background

Pyrimidine is an aromatic heterocyclic moiety containing nitrogen atom at 1st and 3rd positions and play an important role to forms the central core for different necessity of biological active compounds, from this facts, we have designed and synthesized a new class of pyrimidin-2-ol/thiol/amine derivatives and screened for its in vitro antimicrobial activity.

Results and discussion

The synthesized pyrimidine derivatives were confirmed by IR, ¹H/¹³C-NMR, Mass spectral studies and evaluated for their in vitro antimicrobial potential against Gram positive (S. aureus and B. subtilis), Gram negative (E. coli, P. aeruginosa and S. enterica) bacterial strains and fungal strain (C. albicans and A. niger) by tube dilution method and recorded minimum inhibitory concentration in µM/ml. The MBC and MFC values represent the lowest concentration of compound that produces in the range of 96–98% end point reduction of the used test bacterial and fungal species.

Conclusion

In general all synthesized derivatives exhibited good antimicrobial activity. Among them, compounds 2, 5, 10, 11 and 12 have significant antimicrobial activity against used bacterial and fungal strains and also found to be more active than the standard drugs.Graphical abstract

An efficient and mild oxidative amidation of aldehydes using B(C6F5)3 as a catalyst and biological evaluation of the products as potential antimicrobial agents

A mild and efficient protocol for oxidative amidation of diverse aldehydes with amines was developed to generate the corresponding amides in good to excellent yields.

Umbelliferone–oxindole hybrids as novel apoptosis inducing agents

Synthesis and biological evaluation of umbelliferone–oxindole hybrids as novel apoptosis inducing agents.

Identification of new scaffolds with anti-tumor action toward human glioblastoma cells

Compounds containing an isothiazolonaphthoquinone core and HDAC inhibitors with an indolyl-substituted biphenyl-4-yl-acrylohydroxamic acid are promising drug candidates against malignant brain tumors, glioblastomas.