Hydrazide-integrated carbazoles: synthesis, computational, anticancer and molecular docking studies

Phenothiazines as anti-cancer agents: SAR overview and synthetic strategies

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide and there are still limited options for cure. Chemotherapy is the most significant treatment for cancer which increased survival rates, despite this, it is associated with numerous side effects, as well as cancer relapsing due to drug resistance insurgence; consequently, it is still a challenging task to develop new potent and less toxic anti-cancer agents for patients' care. Phenothiazine moiety, which leads a class of well-known antipsychotic drugs, possesses a wide range of biological activities and has been also introduced in cancer chemotherapy. This review aims in disclosing the use of phenothiazines during the last five years for the development of different anti-cancer drug candidates. The design and the synthetic strategies adopted, the SAR investigations and the role of reviewed phenothiazine derivatives as anti-cancer agents and multi-drug resistance (MDR) reversals are here fully described and discussed.

Current status of carbazole hybrids as anticancer agents

The drug resistance and low specificity of current available chemotherapeutics to cancer cells are the main reasons responsible for the failure of cancer chemotherapy and remain dramatic challenges for cancer therapy, creating an urgent need to develop novel anticancer agents. Carbazole nucleus, widely distributed in nature, is a predominant feature of a vast array of biologically active compounds. Carbazole derivatives exhibited potential antiproliferative activity against different cancer cell lines by diverse mechanisms, inclusive of arrest cell cycle and induce apoptosis, and several anticancer agents are carbazole-based compounds. Thus, carbazole derivatives represent a fertile source for discovery of novel anticancer therapeutic agents. Over the past several years, a variety of carbazole hybrids have been developed as potential anticancer agents. The present review focuses on the recent progress, from 2016 until now, in knowledge on anticancer properties, structure-activity relationships and mechanisms of action of carbazole hybrids to provide a basis for development of relevant therapeutic agents.

Molecular Hybrids Integrated with Benzimidazole and Pyrazole Structural Motifs: Design, Synthesis, Biological Evaluation, and Molecular Docking Studies

Synthesis of a series of benzimidazole-ornamented pyrazoles, 6a-6j has been obtained from arylhydrazine and aralkyl ketones via a multistep synthetic strategy. Among them, a hybrid-possessing para-nitrophenyl moiety connected to a pyrazole scaffold (6a) exerted the highest anti-inflammatory activity, which is superior to the standard, diclofenac sodium. While executing the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical-scavenging activity, a hybrid-possessing para-bromophenyl unit integrated at the pyrazole structural motif (6i) exhibited the highest activity among the hybrids examined. Besides, evaluation of anticancer potency of the synthesized hybrids revealed that the one containing a para-fluorophenyl unit tethered at the pyrazole nucleus (6h) showed the highest activity against both the pancreatic cancer cells (SW1990 and AsPCl) investigated. Considerable binding affinity between B-cell lymphoma and the hybrid, 6h has been reflected while performing molecular docking studies (-8.65 kcal/mol). The outcomes of the investigation expose that these hybrids could be used as effective intermediates to construct more potent biological agents.

Phenothiazine and amide-ornamented dihydropyridinesviaa molecular hybridization approach: design, synthesis, biological evaluation and molecular docking studies

A series of novel phenothiazinyldihydropyridine dicarboxamides7a–7jwas synthesized by adopting a multi-step synthetic strategy and characterized through physical and spectral techniques.