Drug repurposing of fluoroquinolones as anticancer agents in 2023

Drug developers are currently focusing on investigating alternative strategies, such as “drug repositioning”, to address issues associated with productivity, regulatory obstacles, and the steadily rising cost of pharmaceuticals. Repositioning is the best strategy to stop searching for new drugs because it takes less time and money to investigate new indications for already approved or unsuccessful drugs. Although there are several potent Topo II inhibitors available on the market as important drugs used in the therapy of many types of cancer, more may be required in the future. The current inhibitors have drawbacks including acquired resistance and unfavorable side effects such as cardiotoxicity and subsequent malignancy. A substantial body of research documented the cytotoxic potential of experimental fluoroquinolones (FQs) on tumor cell lines and their remarkable efficacy against eukaryotic Topo II in addition to optimized physical and metabolic characteristics. The FQ scaffold has a unique ability to potentially resolve every major issue associated with traditional Topo II inhibitors while maintaining a highly desirable profile in crucial drug-likeness parameters; therefore, there is a significant chance that FQs will be repositioned as anticancer candidates. This review offers a summary of the most recent research on the anticancer potential of FQs that was published in 2023. Along with discussing structural activity relationship studies and the mechanism underlying their antiproliferative activity, this review aims to provide up-to-date information that will spur the development of more potent FQs as viable cancer treatment candidates.