Design, synthesis, and biological activity evaluation of novel tubulin polymerization inhibitors based on pyrimidine ring skeletons

Recent Advances in Pyrimidine-Based Drugs

Pyrimidines have become an increasingly important core structure in many drug molecules over the past 60 years. This article surveys recent areas in which pyrimidines have had a major impact in drug discovery therapeutics, including anti-infectives, anticancer, immunology, immuno-oncology, neurological disorders, chronic pain, and diabetes mellitus. The article presents the synthesis of the medicinal agents and highlights the role of the biological target with respect to the disease model. Additionally, the biological potency, ADME properties and pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics (if available) are discussed. This survey attempts to demonstrate the versatility of pyrimidine-based drugs, not only for their potency and affinity but also for the improved medicinal chemistry properties of pyrimidine as a bioisostere for phenyl and other aromatic π systems. It is hoped that this article will provide insight to researchers considering the pyrimidine scaffold as a chemotype in future drug candidates in order to counteract medical conditions previously deemed untreatable.

Development of tubulin polymerization inhibitors as anticancer agents

INTRODUCTION

Microtubules are intracellular, filamentous, polymeric structures that extend throughout the cytoplasm, composed of α-tubulin and β-tubulin subunits. They regulate many cellular functions including cell polarity, cell shape, mitosis, intracellular transport, cell signaling, gene expression, cell integrity, and are associated with tumorigenesis. Inhibition of tubulin polymerization within tumor cells represents a crucial focus in the pursuit of developing anticancer treatments.

AREAS COVERED

This review focuses on the natural product and their synthetic congeners as tubulin inhibitors along with their site of interaction on tubulin. This review also covers the developed novel tubulin inhibitors and important patents focusing on the development of tubulin inhibition for cancer treatment reported from 2018 to 2023. The scientific and patent literature has been searched on PubMed, Espacenet, ScienceDirect, and Patent Guru from 2018-2023.

EXPERT OPINION

Tubulin is one of the promising targets explored extensively for drug discovery. Compounds binding in the colchicine site could be given importance because they can elude resistance mediated by the P-glycoprotein efflux pump and no colchicine site binding inhibitor is approved by FDA so far. The research on the development of antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) for tubluin polymerization inhibition could be significant strategy for cancer treatment.