Medicinal Chemistry Research最新文献

Cancer, a term encompassing a diverse group of diseases, is characterized by uncontrolled cell growth that disrupts normal bodily functions. It remains a major global health concern, claiming millions of lives annually. The causes of cancer are complex and multifaceted, involving lifestyle choices, genetics, and environmental factors. Many FDA-approved drugs feature heterocyclic cores due to their promising pharmacological properties. Notable anticancer agents include doxorubicin, daunorubicin, 5-fluorouracil, methotrexate, vinblastine, and vincristine. Indolizine, a heterocyclic compound with the formula C₈H₇N, stands out as a privileged scaffold in medicinal chemistry. This unique isomer of indole, with nitrogen located at a ring fusion position fused to a six-membered benzene ring, has emerged as a potent candidate for anticancer drug development. This review explores the structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies of various indolizine derivatives, highlighting their potential in targeting diverse cancer types. The review comprehensively analyzes the synthetic pathways employed to create potent indolizine derivatives, focusing on methods such as one-pot reactions, domino reactions, and other innovative approaches. Additionally, it critically examines the biological assays used to evaluate the anticancer activity of indolizine derivatives, providing a quantitative understanding of their potency against various cancer cell lines. Emphasizing different cancer types, including breast, lung, liver, and colorectal cancer, this review underscores the oncotherapeutic significance of indolizine derivatives.

Graphical abstract

Indolizines are one of the heterocycles widely evaluated in oncotherapeutics. Different categories of indolizines are utilized for the treatment of cancers. This report aims to cover all these findings over the last decade and cumulate them into a single record.

Two peptides with dual functionality, namely LLPSY and NAPALVY, exhibit inhibitory effects on both angiotensin-I-converting enzyme (ACE) and dipeptidyl peptidase-IV (DPP-IV), were successfully identified from the hydrolysates of Chinese chive seed (Allium tuberosum Rottl.). Peptide isolation involved reversed-phase chromatography, and peptide sequences were characterized through liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analysis and de novo sequencing. Notably, the Lineweaver-Burk plot analysis revealed that LLPSY (IC₅₀: 15.66 ± 1.11 µM) acted in a non-competitive manner, whereas NAPALVY (IC₅₀: 3.42 ± 0.79 µM) exhibited competitive inhibition, potently inhibiting ACE. Their stability tests against ACE further revealed that LLPSY acted as a real substrate, while NAPALVY functioned as a true inhibitor of ACE. In terms of DPP-IV inhibition, LLPSY (IC₅₀: 2.48 ± 0.10 mM) was identified as a competitive inhibitor, whereas NAPALVY (IC₅₀: 7.63 ± 0.52 mM) displayed noncompetitive inhibition. Both peptides exhibited true inhibitory effects on DPP-IV. Docking simulations provided insights into peptide-enzyme interactions. These novel Allium tuberosum Rottl.-derived peptides hold promise for controlling blood pressure and blood glucose.

Neurodegenerative disorders are caused by the progressive death of neuronal cells in specific regions of the brain and spinal cord. The most common neurodegenerative disorders are Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. The inhibition of enzymes that metabolise neurotransmitter amines is an important approach in the treatment of these disorders and monoamine oxidase (MAO) B inhibitors have thus been used for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. Inhibitors of the MAO-A isoform, in turn, are used clinically for the treatment of affective (e.g., major depression) and anxiety disorders. Recent studies have shown that benzothiazole derivatives act as potent MAO inhibitors. Based on these findings, the present study group synthesised thirteen 2-methylbenzo[d]thiazole derivatives and evaluated their in vitro MAO inhibition properties. The results showed that the benzothiazole derivatives were potent and selective inhibitors of human MAO-B, with all compounds exhibiting IC₅₀ values < 0.017 µM. The most potent MAO-B inhibitor (4d) had an IC₅₀ value of 0.0046 µM, while the most potent MAO-A inhibitor (5e) had an IC₅₀ value of 0.132 µM. It may be concluded that active benzothiazole derivatives may serve as potential leads for the development of MAO inhibitors for the treatment of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.

Monopolar spindle kinase 1 (MPS1, also called TTK) is an attractive target for the treatment of cancers. Five MPS1 inhibitors have entered the clinical trials, but four of them were discontinued; thus, it is necessary to develop MPS1 inhibitors with novel scaffolds. In the present work, several computational tools were built to design MPS1 inhibitors. The deep recurrent neural network was used for generating potential highly active MPS1 inhibitors. The deep neural network was used to build a ligand-based consensus model for distinguishing the highly and weakly active MPS1 inhibitors. Five co-crystal structures were used to develop the consensus docking score for distinguishing actives and decoys. The ligand-based consensus model and the consensus docking score were used to evaluate the generated molecules, and finally, two scaffolds, which were less reported as MPS1 inhibitors previously, were selected. A total of 15 compounds with the two scaffolds were synthesized and tested by in vitro enzymatic inhibition assays. Five compounds had sub-micromolar to low micromolar in vitro potencies, and the most active compound was 10 with an IC₅₀ of 556 nM. The binding modes of the new compounds were revealed by molecular dynamic simulations. We believe that the computational strategies in the present work were helpful for discovering new potential scaffolds.

Oxazolidinones are synthetic antibiotic class of compounds characterized by chemical structure, cyclic carbamate with ‘S’ configuration of substituent at C-5 position. The synthesis of oxazolidinones has gained increasing interest due to their unique mechanism of action that assures high antibiotic efficiency and low susceptibility to resistance mechanisms. Biaryl oxazolidinones are second-generation oxazolidinone (e.g. Tedizolid) having potency against multidrug-resistant (MDR) gram-positive pathogens including MRSA, VRE, penicillin-resistant S. pneumoniae and linezolid-resistant strains. The current manuscript covers structure activity based synthesis of 21 oxazolidinone analogs prepared through various chemical modifications. These novel biaryl oxazolidinones are prepared with the objective to increase spectrum of activity against multidrug-resistant Gram-positive bacteria.

Community acquired bacterial pneumoniae (CABP) infections is the major cause of mortality and morbidity, especially in elderly patients. India accounts for 23% of global pneumonia burden with case fatality rates between 14 and 30%. There is an urgent unmet medical need for safe and effective antibiotic for CABP, due to lack of effective empirical therapy because of widespread resistance to β-lactams antibiotics. On other hand, fluoroquinolone antibiotics have poor tolerability, like hypersensitive reactions and associated disabilities. Hence, our objective was to find an antibiotic having broad coverage of multidrug resistance (MDR) pathogens including typical and atypical respiratory pathogens, with good lung penetration and safety features. Nafithromycin (MIQNAF^®) is a novel “lactone-ketolide” antibiotic developed by Wockhardt Ltd. for the treatment of CABP infections. Recently it has completed phase III clinical trials in India and NDA submitted to drug controller general of India (DCGI). Distinctive features of nafithromycin are ultra-short duration of therapy, oral dosing, high concentration build up in lung i.e. target organ and safety profile. Structurally, it features novel amidoxime core with 2-pyridine-1,3,4-thiadiazole biaryl tether separated with non-flexible four atom spacer having cis double bond and chiral methyl with (S)- configuration resulted in dual target interaction. The novel conformational arrangement interacts favorably with 23S rRNA and domain V of 50S ribosome subunit to elicit outstanding potency against gram-positive bacteria. The preclinical data provided strong scientific evidences for its effectiveness against difficult-to-treat respiratory tract infections (RTIs) caused by multidrug-resistant pathogens such as macrolide-resistant strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae and Streptococcus pyogenes as well as other important pathogens including Haemophilus influenzae. Upon successful phase I clinical findings, nafithromycin was granted Qualified Infectious Disease Product (QIDP) status by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA). Presently besides India specific phase III clinical study completion with partial funding support from Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), it has successfully completed global phase II clinical development, including pharmacokinetic study (NCT02770404) and study for the treatment of community-acquired bacterial pneumonia (NCT02903836). In Europe it has completed single ascending dose (SAD) and multiple ascending dose (MAD) phase I pharmacokinetic studies. This mini review covers relevant published data on nafithromycin and its potential role in management of infections caused by gram-positive pathogens along with summary of different clinical trials conducted in United States, Europe and India.

A series of N-alkylfuran-2-carboxamide derivatives was easily prepared through direct acylation of diverse amines with 2-furoyl chloride. Using an E. coli reporter strain, all compounds were then examined as LuxR-regulated quorum sensing modulators for their agonistic or antagonistic activity. Compounds with a C8 or specially C6 alkyl chain with a comparable chain length with the natural ligand of LuxR were found to be antagonists with an IC₅₀ value of 25 µM. Competition experiments between the N-hexylfuran-2-carboxamide with the natural ligand indicate that the LuxR activity could be restored with high concentration of LuxR ligand. Conformational analysis, docking simulations and protein-ligand affinity prediction suggest that furan-2-carboxamide derivatives interact within the LuxR binding site via H-bonds of the C = O oxygen atom with Tyr62 OH and of the amide NH with Asp79 carboxylate, Tyr62 and Asp79 being two important conserved residues in the LuxR family. The binding mode also suggests that the absence of the hydrogen bond with Trp66, normally observed for the amide retroisoster analogs having the lactone instead of the furyl moiety, is not deleterious to the ability to interact and induce inhibition.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia affecting about 40 million people around the world. The number of people living with this ailment is expected to triple in the next 50 years due to the aging population and the lack of any effective treatment. In this work we have synthesized a group of three hybrid caffeic acid and a resveratrol derivatives (1-4), and we have tested their ability to inhibit in vitro the enzymatic activity of the beta-site amyloid precursor protein cleaving protein enzyme 1 (BACE 1) and acetylcholinesterase (AChE). The inhibitory activity was compared to that of parent compounds caffeic acid and resveratrol, as well as related chlorogenic acid. Clinically tested LY2811376 and tacrine were used as positive controls. All three caffeic acid derivatives displayed better inhibitory activity than parent caffeic acid and chlorogenic acid. In particular, the in vitro IC₅₀ for compound 4 against BACE 1 fell in the nanomolar range (69 ± 5 nM), comparable or better than LY2811376 (173 ± 8 nM) which reached Phase I clinical trials against AD as a BACE 1 inhibitor. On the other hand, compound 3 showed a remarkable AChE inhibitory potency in the low micromolar range (1.93 ± 0.16 μM). Molecular docking was performed to gain valuable insights into the interactions between compounds 1-4 and the active sites of both BACE 1 and AChE. Calculated binding affinities generally correlated well with experimental in vitro inhibition. Experimental and molecular docking results validated the proposed drug design, since the most active compounds 3 and 4 established interactions with relevant amino acid residues of the BACE 1 and AChE active sites through the different pharmacophore features of the hybrid structures. Overall, the results presented in this work could potentially have important implications in the rational design of compounds with potential anti-AD properties.

Diabetes mellitus (DM) has become a growing concern to global public health, being at the forefront of acute disorders and causes of mortality across the globe. Clinically approved drugs that are currently being used are faced with severe side effects, consequently necessitating the development of new drugs with no/fewer side effects and improved pharmacological potency. Herein, we report a rapid and efficient synthesis of thiazolidinone Schiff bases (2a-2t) from benzylidenehydrazines and thioglycolic acid under neat conditions through ultra-sonication. All the synthesized compounds were obtained in exceptional yields (89–95%) and confirmed by 1D and 2D nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, as well as High-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). The synthesized compounds were then evaluated for their antidiabetic activity through α-glucosidase and α-amylase inhibitory potentials and their antioxidant activity through Nitric Oxide (NO), 2,2′-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), and Ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assays. Among them, 2q (IC₅₀ = 96.63 μM) and 2h (IC₅₀ = 125.27 μM) emerged as the most potent derivatives against α-amylase relative to reference drug acarbose (IC₅₀ = 131.63 µM), respectively. Antioxidant evaluation further revealed that the synthesized derivatives were excellent NO scavengers disclosing 2n (IC₅₀ = 44.95 µM) as the most potent derivative. Moreover, in silico ADME calculations predicted these compounds to have excellent drug-like properties. Kinetic studies disclosed the mode of α-amylase inhibition as competitive while molecular docking studies of the most active derivatives performed into the binding active site of human pancreatic α-amylase enzyme deciphered their ligand-protein interactions that explicated their observed experimental potencies.