Dual VEGFR-2 and EGFRT790M inhibitors of phenyldiazenes: anticancer evaluations, ADMET, docking, design and synthesis.

Aim: New phenyldiazene scaffold-linked heterocyclic pyrazole, pyrimidinone, pyrimidinthione, and/or triazine rings have been developed and synthesized.

Methods & results: Cytotoxicity of our derivatives was estimated on four cancer and VERO normal cell lines targeting EGFR^T790M (epidermal growth factor receptor) and VEGFR-2 (vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2) enzymes. Our new derivatives selectively inhibited both VEGFR-2 and EGFR as they have the essential structural requirements for inhibitors of both receptors. Derivative 14 was the most active on A549, HCT116, HepG2, and MCF-7 cancers with half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) = 5.50, 9.77, 7.12, and 7.85 µM respectively. The assessed derivatives 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 14 showed IC₅₀ = 54.40-62.60 μM against normal VERO (normal kidney) cells with low toxicity. In addition, derivatives 14, 8, 10, 7 and 9 were discovered to be very good active inhibitors of VEGFR-2 at IC₅₀ values of 1.15, 1.35, 140, 1.78 and 1.90 µM, respectively. Furthermore, derivatives 14, 10, 8, and 9 strongly repressed EGFR^T790M with IC₅₀ = 0.28, 0.33, 0.35, and 0.50 µM correspondingly. Additionally, the highly active compounds 8, 10, and 14 showed good ADMET profile.

Conclusion: Our derivatives could be considered as anticancer agents with dual VEGFR-2 and EGFR^T790M inhibition.