Synthesis, in silico and in vitro Evaluation of Novel Oxazolopyrimidines as Promising Anticancer Agents

New potential bioactive oxazolopyrimidines have been synthesized using two main approaches: the pyrimidine ring annulation on a functionalized oxazole and the benzoyl bromide trimerization followed by rearrangement and formation of the oxazolo[5,4-d]pyrimidine scaffold. The docking analyzes have shown that 7-piperazine substituted oxazolo[4,5-d]pyrimidines 8a–8c could be potential VEGFR2 inhibitors with high free energy of ligand–protein complex formation (ΔG: −10.1, −9.6, −9.8 kcal/mol, respectively). In vitro antitumor assays confirmed theoretical predictions that oxazolo[4,5-d]pyrimidines 8a–8c containing positively charged piperazine moiety should demonstrate significantly higher cytotoxic effects. 4-[5-(4-Chlorophenyl)-2-phenyl[1,3]oxazolo[4,5-d]pyrimidin-7-yl]piperazin-1-ium trifluoroacetate (8c) exhibited a slightly higher antiproliferative effect (IC50=0.21 μm) than doxorubicin (IC50=0.36 μm) on MDA-MB-231 cell line and has relatively good results on OVCAR-3 (IC50=1.7 μm) and HCT-116 (IC50=0.24 μm) cells