18F-labeled pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine derivatives: synthesis from 2,4-dinitrobenzamide and tosylate precursors and comparative biological evaluation for tumor imaging with positron emission tomography

Medicinal Chemistry of Pyrazolopyrimidine Scaffolds Substituted with Different Heterocyclic Nuclei

BACKGROUND

Medicinal chemistry of pyrazolopyrimidine scaffolds substituted with different heterocyclic nuclei has attracted great attention due to their wide range of biological activities that have been reported. Pyrazolopyrimidine scaffold is an important privileged heterocycle nucleus in drug discovery.

METHODS

All pharmacological activities of pyrazolopyrimidine scaffold have been mentioned, such as anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antihypertensive, antitubercular, antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal, antidiabetic, and anti-obesity agents. In addition, it was used in both osteoporosis and neurological disorders. The difference in potency and bioavailability of pyrazolopyrimidine derivatives refers to the substituent groups that can increase the activity against specific targets and enhance their selectivity.

RESULTS

This review provides an overview of different synthetic pathways, structure activity relationships, and preclinical studies of pyrazolopyrimidine scaffolds substituted with a variety of heterocyclic nuclei, as well as it provides a discussion on the significant biological findings of these important scaffolds. In addition, it provides some insights on the different macromolecular targets that pyrazolopyrimidine scaffold can effectively work on, such as; cyclin dependent kinases; CDK2, CDK7, and CDK9, checkpoint kinases; CHK1 and CHK2 and their correlation with the anticancer activity, PI3Kα, transient receptor potential canonical 6, B-Raf kinase, Interleukin- 1 receptor-associated kinase 4, B-cell lymphoma 6, TRKA-C kinase, potent kDa ribosomal protein S6 kinase, colon cancer cell line (CaCo-2), domain receptor kinase (KDR), HepG-2 carcinoma cell, FLT3. The antibacterial activity against B. subtilis and E. coli and antifungal activity against C. albicans, C. tropicalis, A. niger, and A. clavatus are discussed.

CONCLUSION

This review provides an overview of the different pharmacological activities of the pyrazolopyrimidine scaffold and its correlation with chemical structure. Some exciting new developments in pyrazolopyrimidine scaffolds are also presented in this review.

Purine analogs: synthesis, evaluation and molecular dynamics of pyrazolopyrimidines based benzothiazole as anticancer and antimicrobial CDK inhibitors

Cyclin dependent kinases (CDKs) enzymes regulate cell proliferation and transcriptional processes and can be considered as important targets for the development of anticancer and antimicrobial drugs. In this work, novel benzothiazolyl pyrazolopyrimidine carboxamide and benzothiazolyl pyrazolopyrimidine carbonitrile derivatives were synthesized and characterized. The synthetic process was carried out via the reaction of ylidine benzothiazole derivatives with pyrazolocarboxamide and pyrazolocarbonitrile through a Michael addition pathway. Docking studies were done against CDK2 and CDK9 enzymes and revealed that compound 8a showed high free energy of binding against CDK2 (-8.10 kcal/mol) while compound 15a showed the highest free energy of binding against CDK2 (-8.16 kcal/mol) and CDK9 (-7.87 kcal/mol). Molecular dynamics simulations were conducted to compare the stability of binding of the most active compound 15a and the potent reference drugs roscovitine and dinaciclib. A CDK enzyme assay was done against CDK2 and CDK9 for the previously mentioned top-ranked compounds, 8a and 15a. It was found that compound 15a was the most potent inhibitor for both enzymes with IC₅₀ of 127 ± 1.01 nM and 65 ± 0.50 nM. The anticancer activity of the synthesized compounds was also determined by NCI against 60 cell lines. Compound 8a showed the highest cytotoxic activity against a large number of the tested cell lines. The antimicrobial activity of the synthesized compounds was determined against various gram positive and gram-negative bacteria as well as fungi. The results showed that compound 15a had the strongest antibacterial activity.

Preparation, in vitro and in vivo evaluation, and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation studies of novel F-18 labeled tumor imaging agents targeting focal adhesion kinase (FAK)

Coronal micro-PET images of mice bearing S180 tumor at 30 min post-injection of [¹⁸F]2.

Design and synthesis of novel pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine derivatives bearing nitrogen mustard moiety and evaluation of their antitumor activity in vitro and in vivo

A series of novel pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine derivatives bearing nitrogen mustard moiety were designed, synthesized and evaluated for their antiproliferative activities against five human cancer cell lines (A549, SH-SY5Y, HepG2, MCF-7 and DU145) in vitro. Among these compounds, 13b exhibited potent inhibitory effect on the proliferation of the five tumor cells and was able to inhibit cell cycle arrest at G1 phase and induce cell apoptosis. In HepG2 HCC xenograft compound 13b was selected for evaluating the antitumor activity in vivo which exhibited significant cancer growth inhibition with low host toxicity in vivo.