Quinazoline-based VEGFR-2 inhibitors as potential anti-angiogenic agents: A contemporary perspective of SAR and molecular docking studies

Angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels from the existing vasculature, is pivotal in the migration, growth, and differentiation of endothelial cells in normal physiological conditions. In various types of tumour microenvironments, dysregulated angiogenesis plays a crucial role in supplying oxygen and nutrients to cancerous cells, leading to tumour size growth. VEGFR-2 tyrosine kinase has been extensively studied as a critical regulator of angiogenesis; thus, inhibition of VEGFR-2 has been widely used for cancer treatments in recent years. Quinazoline nucleus is a privileged and versatile scaffold with a broad range of pharmacological activity, especially in the field of tyrosine kinase inhibitors with more than twenty small molecule inhibitors approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in the last two decades. As of now, the U.S. FDA has approved eleven small chemical inhibitors of VEGFR-2 for various types of malignancies, with a prime example being vandetanib, a quinazoline derivative, which is a multi targeted kinase inhibitor used for the treatment of late-stage medullary thyroid cancer. Despite of prosperous discovery and development of VEGFR-2 down regulator drugs, there still exists limitations in clinical efficacy, adverse effects, a high rate of clinical discontinuation and drug resistance. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the design and synthesis of more selective and effective inhibitors to tackle these challenges. Through the gathering of this review, we have strived to broaden the extent of our view over the entire scope of quinazoline-based VEGFR-2 inhibitors. Herein, we give an overview of the importance and advancement status of reported structures, highlighting the SAR, biological evaluations and their binding modes

Mono- and bis-pyrazolophthalazines: Design, synthesis, cytotoxic activity, DNA/HSA binding and molecular docking studies

In an attempt to find new potent cytotoxic compounds, several mono- and bis-pyrazolophthalazines 4a-m and 6a-h were synthesized through an efficient, one-pot, three- and pseudo five-component synthetic approach. All derivatives were evaluated for their in vitro cytotoxic activities against four human cancer cell lines of A549, HepG2, MCF-7, and HT29. Compound 4e showed low toxicity against normal cell lines (MRC-5 and MCF 10A, IC50 > 200 µM) and excellent cytotoxic activity against A549 cell line with IC50 value of 1.25 ± 0.19 µM, which was 1.8 times more potent than doxorubicin (IC50 = 2.31 ± 0.13 µM). In addition, compound 6c exhibited remarkable cytotoxic activity against A549 and MCF-7 cell lines (IC50 = 1.35 ± 0.12 and 0.49 ± 0.01 µM, respectively), more than two-fold higher than that of doxorubicin. The binding properties of the best active mono- and bis-pyrazolophthalazine (4e and 6c) with HSA and DNA were fully evaluated by various techniques including UV�Vis absorption, circular dichroism (CD), Zeta potential and dynamic light scattering analyses indicating interaction of the compounds with the secondary structure of HSA and significant change of DNA conformation, presumably via a groove binding mechanism. Additionally, molecular docking and site-selective binding studies confirmed the fundamental interaction of compounds 4e and 6c with base pairs of DNA. Compounds 4e and 6c showed promising features to be considered as potential lead structures for further studies in cancer therapy. © 202

An efficient and targeted synthetic approach towards new highly substituted 6-amino-pyrazolo1,5-apyrimidines with α-glucosidase inhibitory activity

In an attempt to find novel α-glucosidase inhibitors, an efficient, straightforward reaction to synthesize a library of fully substituted 6-amino-pyrazolo1,5-apyrimidines 3 has been investigated. Heating a mixture of α-azidochalcones 1 and 3-aminopyrazoles 2 under the mild condition afforded desired compounds with a large substrate scope in good to excellent yields. All obtained products were evaluated as α-glucosidase inhibitors and exhibited excellent potency with IC50 values ranging from 15.2 ± 0.4 µM to 201.3 ± 4.2 µM. Among them, compound 3d was around 50-fold more potent than acarbose (IC50 = 750.0 ± 1.5 µM) as standard inhibitor. Regarding product structures, kinetic study and molecular docking were carried out for two of the most potent ones. © 2020, The Author(s)

An efficient and targeted synthetic approach towards new highly substituted 6-amino-pyrazolo1,5-apyrimidines with α-glucosidase inhibitory activity

In an attempt to find novel α-glucosidase inhibitors, an efficient, straightforward reaction to synthesize a library of fully substituted 6-amino-pyrazolo1,5-apyrimidines 3 has been investigated. Heating a mixture of α-azidochalcones 1 and 3-aminopyrazoles 2 under the mild condition afforded desired compounds with a large substrate scope in good to excellent yields. All obtained products were evaluated as α-glucosidase inhibitors and exhibited excellent potency with IC50 values ranging from 15.2 ± 0.4 µM to 201.3 ± 4.2 µM. Among them, compound 3d was around 50-fold more potent than acarbose (IC50 = 750.0 ± 1.5 µM) as standard inhibitor. Regarding product structures, kinetic study and molecular docking were carried out for two of the most potent ones. © 2020, The Author(s)

Imidazo[1,2-c]quinazolines as a novel and potent scaffold of α-glucosidase inhibitors: design, synthesis, biological evaluations, and in silico studies

Abstract α-Glucosidase inhibition is an approved treatment for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). In an attempt to develop novel anti-α-glucosidase agents, two series of substituted imidazo[1,2-c]quinazolines, namely 6a–c and 11a–o, were synthesized using a simple, straightforward synthetic routes. These compounds were thoroughly characterized by IR, 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy, as well as mass spectrometry and elemental analysis. Subsequently, the inhibitory activities of these compounds were evaluated against Saccharomyces cerevisiae α-glucosidase. In present study, acarbose was utilized as a positive control. These imidazoquinazolines exhibited excellent to great inhibitory potencies with IC50 values ranging from 12.44 ± 0.38 μM to 308.33 ± 0.06 μM, which were several times more potent than standard drug with IC50 value of 750.0 ± 1.5 μM. Representatively, compound 11j showed remarkable anti-α-glucosidase potency with IC50 = 12.44 ± 0.38 μM, which was 60.3 times more potent than positive control acarbose. To explore the potential inhibition mechanism, further evaluations including kinetic analysis, circular dichroism, fluorescence spectroscopy, and thermodynamic profile were carried out for the most potent compound 11j. Moreover, molecular docking studies and in silico ADME prediction for all imidazoquinazolines 6a–c and 11a–o were performed to reveal their important binding interactions, as well as their physicochemical and drug-likeness properties, respectively

Design, synthesis, molecular docking, and in vitro α-glucosidase inhibitory activities of novel 3-amino-2,4-diarylbenzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-a]pyrimidines against yeast and rat α-glucosidase

Abstract In an attempt to find novel, potent α-glucosidase inhibitors, a library of poly-substituted 3-amino-2,4-diarylbenzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-a]pyrimidines 3a–ag have been synthesized through heating a mixture of 2-aminobenzimidazoles 1 and α-azidochalcone 2 under the mild conditions. This efficient, facile protocol has been resulted into the desirable compounds with a wide substrate scope in good to excellent yields. Afterwards, their inhibitory activities against yeast α-glucosidase enzyme were investigated. Showing IC50 values ranging from 16.4 ± 0.36 µM to 297.0 ± 1.2 µM confirmed their excellent potency to inhibit α-glucosidase which encouraged us to perform further studies on α-glucosidase enzymes obtained from rat as a mammal source. Among various synthesized 3-amino-2,4-diarylbenzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-a]pyrimidines, compound 3k exhibited the highest potency against both Saccharomyces cerevisiae α-glucosidase (IC50 = 16.4 ± 0.36 μM) and rat small intestine α-glucosidase (IC50 = 45.0 ± 8.2 μM). Moreover, the role of amine moiety on the observed activity was studied through substituting with chlorine and hydrogen resulted into a considerable deterioration on the inhibitory activity. Kinetic study and molecular docking study have confirmed the in-vitro results