scholarly journals Chalcones: Potential Anticancer Agents

Author(s):  
Adam McCluskey ◽  
Cecilia Russell

Chalcones in their various guises have been considered either valid and critically important lead compounds in the development of novel anticancer agents or as pan assay interference compounds, PAINS. Medicinal chemistry is replete with exemplars from both “camps” progressing to clinical utility. Chalcones offer a simple starting point for the development of specific compounds with high levels of activity toward key biological targets. Chalcones have been shown to display a wide array of anticancer compounds. This chapter seeks to offer an overview of key examples in an effort to encourage further reading and research in development in this intriguing space.

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (22) ◽  
pp. 8692
Author(s):  
Alessandra Benassi ◽  
Filippo Doria ◽  
Valentina Pirota

Nowadays, an increasing number of heterocyclic-based drugs found application in medicinal chemistry and, in particular, as anticancer agents. In this context, oxadiazoles—five-membered aromatic rings—emerged for their interesting biological properties. Modification of oxadiazole scaffolds represents a valid strategy to increase their anticancer activity, especially on 1,2,4 and 1,3,4 regioisomers. In the last years, an increasing number of oxadiazole derivatives, with remarkable cytotoxicity for several tumor lines, were identified. Structural modifications, that ensure higher cytotoxicity towards malignant cells, represent a solid starting point in the development of novel oxadiazole-based drugs. To increase the specificity of this strategy, outstanding oxadiazole scaffolds have been designed to selectively interact with biological targets, including enzymes, globular proteins, and nucleic acids, showing more promising antitumor effects. In the present work, we aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the anticancer activity of these heterocycles, describing their effect on different targets and highlighting how their structural versatility has been exploited to modulate their biological properties.


2013 ◽  
Vol 66 (12) ◽  
pp. 1483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan B. Baell ◽  
Lori Ferrins ◽  
Hendrik Falk ◽  
George Nikolakopoulos

Pan assay interference compounds (PAINS) are readily discovered in any bioassay and can appear to give selective and optimisable hits. The most common PAINS can be readily recognised by their structure. However, there are compounds that closely resemble PAINS that are not specifically recognised by the PAINS filters. In addition, highly reactive compounds are not encoded for in the PAINS filters because they were excluded from the high-throughput screening (HTS) library used to develop the filters and so were never present to provide indicting data. A compounding complication in the area is that very occasionally a PAINS compound may serve as a viable starting point for progression. Despite such an occasional example, the literature is littered with an overwhelming number of examples of compounds that fail to progress and were probably not optimisable in the first place, nor useful tool compounds. Thus it is with great caution and diligence that compounds possessing a known PAINS core should be progressed through to medicinal chemistry optimisation, if at all, as the chances are very high that the hits will be found to be non-progressable, often after a significant waste of resources.


2021 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Parul Grover ◽  
Monika Bhardwaj ◽  
Garima Kapoor ◽  
Lovekesh Mehta ◽  
Roma Ghai ◽  
...  

: The heterocyclic compounds have a great significance in medicinal chemistry because they have extensive biological activities. Cancer is globally the leading cause of death and it is a challenge to develop an appropriate treatment for the management of cancer. Continuous efforts are being made to find a suitable medicinal agent for cancer therapy. Nitrogen-containing heterocycles have received noteworthy attention due to their wide and distinctive pharmacological activities. One of the most important nitrogen-containing heterocycles in medicinal chemistry is ‘quinazoline’ that possesses a wide spectrum of biological properties. This scaffold is an important pharmacophore and is considered a privileged structure. The various substituted quinazolines displayed anticancer activity against different types of cancer. This review highlights the recent advances in quinazoline based molecules as anticancer agents. Several in-vitro and in-vivo models used along with the results are also included. A subpart briefing natural quinazoline containing anticancer compounds is also incorporated in the review.


2020 ◽  
Vol 89 (1) ◽  
pp. e406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roman Lesyk

4-Thiazolidinones, as examples of privileged scaffolds, have been the focus of medicinal chemistry since 60th. Among them, 5-substituted thiazolidinones with a C5 exocyclic bond (5-ene derivatives) are of special interest due to chemical characteristics and pharmacological profiles, possessing anticancer, antimicrobial, and antiviral properties, as well as being high-affinity ligands to a number of biological targets. A new medicinal chemistry trend claims that the aforementioned compounds are frequent hitters or pan assay interference compounds, which are useless because of the possible low selectivity. This is argued by the Michael acceptor property of 5-ene-4-thiazolidinones, which is actively discussed in the literature and requires further investigation. Based on SAR analysis, the main vectors for the design of 5-ene-4-thiazolidinone-based molecules were proposed: complication of C5 fragment; introduction of the substituents in the N3 position; synthesis of isosteric heterocycles; combination with other pharmacologically attractive fragments; annealing of thiazolidinone core; utilisation of 5-ene-thiazolidinones in synthesis of other compounds. The affinity of 5-ene-4-thiazolidinones toward various targets can be regarded as an advantage in polypharmacological approaches. Michael acceptors are considered as the “new old tool” for new drug creation, especially anticancer agents. One of the possible solutions within privileged substructure-based diversity-oriented synthesis is the fixation of 5-ene-4-thiazolidinone fragment in the fused heterocycles, for example, thiopyrano[2,3-d]thiazoles obtained from 5-ene-thiazolidinones.


Author(s):  
Yongzhen Guo ◽  
Xuben Hou ◽  
Hao Fang

: Benzimidazole is an aromatic bicyclic heterocycle that is regarded as a valuable privileged scaffold in medicinal chemistry. Many marketed drugs and natural products containing benzimidazole scaffolds exert great influence in fighting various diseases, such as hypertension, peptic ulcers, parasitic infections, and cancer. In this review, we introduce the pharmacological applications of some marketed drugs and lead compounds with a focus on anticancer agents, reporting the corresponding data to show the biological activities at their targets. The publications in this review encompass those from 2014 to 2019.


Author(s):  
Alessandra Benassi ◽  
Filippo Doria ◽  
Valentina Pirota

Nowadays, an increasing number of heterocyclic-based drugs found application in medicinal chemistry and, in particular, as anticancer agents. In this context, oxadiazoles, five-membered aromatic rings, emerged for their interesting biological properties. Modification of oxadiazole scaffolds represents a valid strategy to increase their anticancer activity, especially on 1,2,4 and 1,3,4 regioisomers. In the last years, an increasing number of oxadiazole derivatives, with remarkable cytotoxicity for several tumor lines, were identified. Structural modifications, that ensure higher cytotoxicity towards malignant cells, represent a solid starting point in the development of novel oxadiazoles-based drugs. To increase the specificity of this strategy, outstanding oxadiazole scaffolds have been designed to selectively interact with biological targets, including enzymes, globular proteins and nucleic acids, showing more promising antitumor effects. In the present work, we aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the anticancer activity of these heterocycles, describing their effect on different targets and highlighting how their structural versatility has been exploited to modulate their biological properties.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (41) ◽  
pp. 7452-7475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta A. Andrade ◽  
Luísa M.D.R.S. Martins

: The development of safe and effective chemotherapeutic agents is one of the uppermost priorities and challenges of medicinal chemistry and new transition metal complexes are being continuously designed and tested as anticancer agents. Scorpionate ligands have played a great role in coordination chemistry, since their discovery by Trofimenko in the late 1960s, with significant contributions in the fields of catalysis and bioinorganic chemistry. Scorpionate metal complexes have also shown interesting anticancer properties, and herein, the most recent (last decade) and relevant scorpionate complexes reported for application in medicinal chemistry as chemotherapeutic agents are reviewed. The current progress on the anticancer properties of transition metal complexes bearing homo- or hetero- scorpionate ligands, derived from bis- or tris-(pyrazol-1-yl)-borate or -methane moieties is highlighted.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 640-654
Author(s):  
Hamidreza Akrami ◽  
Bibi Fatemeh Mirjalili ◽  
Omidreza Firuzi ◽  
Azadeh Hekmat ◽  
Ali Akbar Saboury ◽  
...  

Background: Chromene and anilinopyrimidine heterocyclics are attractive anticancer compounds that have inspired many researchers to design novel derivatives bearing improved anticancer activity. Methods: A series of pyrimidine-fused benzo[f]chromene derivatives 6a-x were synthesized as anticancer hybrids of 1H-benzo[f]chromenes and anilinopyrimidines. The inhibitory activity of the synthesized compounds 6a-x against cell viability of human chronic myelogenous leukemia (K562), human acute lymphoblastic leukemia (MOLT-4) and human breast adenocarcinoma (MCF-7) cell lines was evaluated using MTT assay. The interaction of the most promising compound with calf-thymus DNA was also studied using spectrometric titrations and Circular Dichroism (CD) spectroscopy. Results: Most compounds showed promising activity against tested cell lines. Among them, 2,4- dimethoxyanilino derivative 6g exhibited the best profile of activity against tested cell lines (IC50s = 1.6-6.1 μM) with no toxicity against NIH3T3 normal cell (IC50 >200 μM). The spectrometric studies exhibited that compound 6g binds to DNA strongly and may change DNA conformation significantly, presumably via a groove binding mechanism. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that the prototype compound 6g can be considered as a novel lead compound for the design and discovery of novel anticancer agents.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (13) ◽  
pp. 6896
Author(s):  
Bianca op den Brouw ◽  
Parviz Ghezellou ◽  
Nicholas R. Casewell ◽  
Syed Abid Ali ◽  
Behzad Fathinia ◽  
...  

Venoms are a rich source of potential lead compounds for drug discovery, and descriptive studies of venom form the first phase of the biodiscovery process. In this study, we investigated the pharmacological potential of crude Pseudocerastes and Eristicophis snake venoms in haematological disorders and cancer treatment. We assessed their antithrombotic potential using fibrinogen thromboelastography, fibrinogen gels with and without protease inhibitors, and colourimetric fibrinolysis assays. These assays indicated that the anticoagulant properties of the venoms are likely induced by the hydrolysis of phospholipids and by selective fibrinogenolysis. Furthermore, while most fibrinogenolysis occurred by the direct activity of snake venom metalloproteases and serine proteases, modest evidence indicated that fibrinogenolytic activity may also be mediated by selective venom phospholipases and an inhibitory venom-derived serine protease. We also found that the Pseudocerastes venoms significantly reduced the viability of human melanoma (MM96L) cells by more than 80%, while it had almost no effect on the healthy neonatal foreskin fibroblasts (NFF) as determined by viability assays. The bioactive properties of these venoms suggest that they contain a number of toxins suitable for downstream pharmacological development as candidates for antithrombotic or anticancer agents.


2004 ◽  
Vol 2004 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamal M. Arif ◽  
Amal A. Al-Hazzani ◽  
Muhammed Kunhi ◽  
Fahad Al-Khodairy

In the past several decades, marine organisms have generously gifted to the pharmaceutical industries numerous naturally bioactive compounds with antiviral, antibacterial, antimalarial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anticancer potentials. But till date only few anticancer drugs (cytarabine, vidarabine) have been commercially developed from marine compounds while several others are currently in different clinical trials. Majority of these compounds were tested in the tumor xenograft models, however, lack of anticancer potential data in the chemical- and/or oncogene-induced pre-initiation animal carcinogenesis models might have cost some of the marine anticancer compounds an early exit from the clinical trials. This review critically discusses importance of preclinical evaluation, failure of human clinical trials with certain potential anticancer agents, the screening tests used, and choice of biomarkers.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document