Novel (E)-alpha-[(1H-indol-3-yl)methylene]benzeneacetic acids as endothelin receptor ligands

Synthesis and Molecular Modelling Studies of New 1,3-Diaryl-5-Oxo-Proline Derivatives as Endothelin Receptor Ligands

The synthesis of seventeen new 1,3-diaryl-5-oxo-proline derivatives as endothelin receptor (ETR) ligands is described. The structural configuration of the new molecules was determined by analyzing selected signals in proton NMR spectra. In vitro binding assays of the human ET_A and ET_B receptors allowed us to identify compound 31h as a selective ET_AR ligand. The molecular docking of the selected compounds and the ET_A antagonist atrasentan in the ET_AR homology model provided insight into the structural elements required for the affinity and the selectivity of the ET_AR subtype.

Synthesis and Experimental Validation of New Designed Heterocyclic Compounds with Antiproliferative Activity versus Breast Cancer Cell Lines MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231

Recent drug discovery efforts are highly focused towards identification, design, and synthesis of small molecules as anticancer agents. With this aim, we recently designed and synthesized novel compounds with high efficacy and specificity for the treatment of breast tumors. Based on the obtained results, we constructed a Volsurf+ (VS+) model using a dataset of 59 compounds able to predict the in vitro antitumor activity against MCF-7 cancer cell line for new derivatives. In the present paper, in order to further verify the robustness of this model, we report the results of the projection of more than 150 known molecules and 9 newly synthesized compounds. We predict their activity versus MCF-7 cell line and experimentally verify the in silico results for some promising chosen molecules in two human breast cell lines, MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231.

Antitumor properties of substituted (αE)-α-(1H-indol-3-ylmethylene)benzeneacetic acids or amides

A novel class of indole derivatives characterized by a (αE)-α-(1H-indol-3-ylmethylene)benzeneacetic acid or amide scaffold was synthesized. These derivatives, assayed for cell-growth inhibition activity against a panel of six different tumor cell lines, showed strong antiproliferative activity and selectivity mainly towards DU145 cell line. In particular, compounds 2d-m and 5 stand out for their cell growth inhibitory activity and, among them, compound 2d emerged for its selectivity towards DU145 with respect to other tested tumor cell lines. DU145 treated with 1μM of 2d for 72h showed p21(Cip1) induction and suppression of Akt signaling together with induction of Rb. From a computational point of view, two different approaches were used in order to study topology and electronic properties of the novel compounds and to shed light on their drug-likeness properties. Firstly, topological and electronic features of the compounds endowed with the most relevant biological activity were deepened; in parallel, some ADME properties like solubility and permeability were predicted.

Evaluation of new indole and bromoindole derivatives as pp60(c-Src) tyrosine kinase inhibitors

A series of N-benzyl-indole-3-imine-, amine derivatives and their 5-bromo congeners were synthesized and their biological activity were evaluated against the pp60(c-Src) tyrosine kinase target. To afford the imine derivatives, aldehydes were reacted with substituted benzylamines and the corresponding amine derivatives were obtained by NaBH(4) reduction of these imines. Except insoluble N-benzyl-indole-3-imine derivatives, all the derivatives showed some activity against the kinase target. Screening of these compounds for their biological activity revealed that among N-benzyl-indole derivatives, those bearing 5-bromo substitution have the enhanced potency, where the amine derivatives were more active than imines.