A convenient synthesis of 1,3,4-thiadiazole and 1,3,4-oxadiazole based peptidomimetics employing diacylhydrazines derived from amino acids

An Understanding of Mechanism-Based Approaches for 1,3,4-Oxadiazole Scaffolds as Cytotoxic Agents and Enzyme Inhibitors

The world's health system is plagued by cancer and a worldwide effort is underway to find new drugs to treat cancer. There has been a significant improvement in understanding the pathogenesis of cancer, but it remains one of the leading causes of death. The imperative 1,3,4-oxadiazole scaffold possesses a wide variety of biological activities, particularly for cancer treatment. In the development of novel 1,3,4-oxadiazole-based drugs, structural modifications are important to ensure high cytotoxicity towards malignant cells. These structural modification strategies have shown promising results when combined with outstanding oxadiazole scaffolds, which selectively interact with nucleic acids, enzymes, and globular proteins. A variety of mechanisms, such as the inhibition of growth factors, enzymes, and kinases, contribute to their antiproliferative effects. The activity of different 1,3,4-oxadiazole conjugates were tested on the different cell lines of different types of cancer. It is demonstrated that 1,3,4-oxadiazole hybridization with other anticancer pharmacophores have different mechanisms of action by targeting various enzymes (thymidylate synthase, HDAC, topoisomerase II, telomerase, thymidine phosphorylase) and many of the proteins that contribute to cancer cell proliferation. The focus of this review is to highlight the anticancer potential, molecular docking, and SAR studies of 1,3,4-oxadiazole derivatives by inhibiting specific cancer biological targets, such as inhibiting telomerase activity, HDAC, thymidylate synthase, and the thymidine phosphorylase enzyme. The purpose of this review is to summarize recent developments and discoveries in the field of anticancer drugs using 1,3,4-oxadiazoles.

Comparative Study of the Synthetic Approaches and Biological Activities of the Bioisosteres of 1,3,4-Oxadiazoles and 1,3,4-Thiadiazoles over the Past Decade

The bioisosteres of 1,3,4-oxadiazoles and 1,3,4-thiadiazoles are well-known pharmacophores for many medicinally important drugs. Throughout the past 10 years, 1,3,4-oxa-/thiadiazole nuclei have been very attractive to researchers for drug design, synthesis, and the study of their potential activity towards a variety of diseases, including microbial and viral infections, cancer, diabetes, pain, and inflammation. This work is an up-to-date comparative study that identifies the differences between 1,3,4-thiadiazoles and 1,3,4-oxadiazoles concerning their methods of synthesis from different classes of starting compounds under various reaction conditions, as well as their biological activities and structure–activity relationship.

Experimental and Theoretical Studies on the Mechanism of DDQ-Mediated Oxidative Cyclization of N-Aroylhydrazones

The controversial single-electron-transfer process, frequently proposed in many 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-1,4-benzoquinone (DDQ)-mediated reactions, was investigated experimentally and theoretically using the oxidative cyclization of aroylhydrazone with DDQ. DDQ-mediated oxadiazole formation involves several processes, including cyclization to form an oxadiazole ring and N-H bond cleavage, either by proton, hydride, or hydrogen atom transfer. The detailed mechanistic study using the M06-2X density functional theory, and the 6-31+G(d,p) basis set, suggests that the pathways involving radical ion pair (RIP) intermediates, which resulted from single-electron transfer (SET), were found to be energetically nearly identical to the pathway without the SET. The substituent-dependent reactivity of oxadiazole formation was consistent with the free energy profiles of both pathways, with or without the SET. This result indicates that in addition to the electron-transfer pathway, the nucleophilic addition/elimination pathway for DDQ should be considered as a possible mechanism of the oxidative transformation reaction using DDQ.

Synthesis and trypanocidal activity of novel pyridinyl-1,3,4-thiadiazole derivatives

Herein, we present the design, synthesis and trypanocidal evaluation of sixteen new 1,3,4-thiadiazole derivatives from N-aminobenzyl or N-arylhydrazone series. All derivatives were assayed against the trypomastigote form of Trypanosoma cruzi, showing IC₅₀ values ranging from 3 to 226 μM, and a better trypanocidal profile was demonstrated for the 1,3,4-thiadiazole-N-arylhydrazones (3a-g). In this series, the 2-pyridinyl fragment bound to the imine subunit of the hydrazine moiety presented pharmacophoric behavior for trypanocidal activity. Compounds 2a, 11a and 3e presented remarkable activity and excellent selectivity indexes. Compound 2a was also active against the intracellular amastigote form of T. cruzi. Moreover, its corresponding hydrochloride, compound 11a, showed the most promising profile, producing phenotypic changes similar to those caused by posaconazole, a well-known inhibitor of sterol biosynthesis. Thus, 1,3,4-thiadiazole derivative 11a could be considered a good prototype for the development of new drug candidates for Chagas disease therapy.

Acyl Fluorides: Fast, Efficient, and Versatile Lysine-Based Protein Conjugation via Plug-and-Play Strategy

We report a plug-and-play strategy for the preparation of functionally enhanced antibodies with a defined average degree of conjugation (DoC). The first stage (plug) allows the controllable and efficient installation of azide groups on lysine residues of a native antibody using 4-azidobenzoyl fluoride. The second step (play) allows for versatile antibody functionalization with a single payload or combination of payloads, such as a toxin, a fluorophore, or an oligonucleotide, via copper-free strain-promoted azide-alkyne cycloaddition (SPAAC). It is notable that in comparison to a classical N-hydroxysuccinimide ester (NHS) strategy, benzoyl fluorides show faster and more efficient acylation of lysine residues in a PBS buffer. This translates into better control of the DoC and enables the efficient and fast functionalization of delicate biomolecules at low temperature.

Facile one-pot synthesis of 2-amino-1,3,4-oxadiazole tethered peptidomimetics by molecular-iodine-mediated cyclodeselenization

Mild and highly efficient I₂ and Et₃N aided cyclodeselenization of in situ generated selenosemicarbazide is described to obtain 2-amino-1,3,4-oxadiazole peptidomimetics.

A facile one pot route for the synthesis of imide tethered peptidomimetics

A simple and efficient method for the synthesis of N,N’-orthogonally protected imide tethered peptidomimetics is presented. The imide peptidomimetics were synthesized by coupling the in situ generated selenocarboxylate of N^α-protected amino acids with N^α-protected amino acid azides in good yields.

Efficient access to novel androsteno-17-(1',3',4')-oxadiazoles and 17β-(1',3',4')-thiadiazoles via N-substituted hydrazone and N,N'-disubstituted hydrazine intermediates, and their pharmacological evaluation in vitro

A series of novel 17-exo-oxadiazoles and -thiadiazoles in the Δ(5) androstene series were efficiently synthesized from pregnenolone acetate and pregnadienolone acetate via multistep pathways. 17β-(1',3',4')-Oxadiazoles were obtained in high yields by the phenyliodonium diacetate-induced oxidative ring closure of semicarbazone and N-acylhydrazones derived from 3β-acetoxy- and 3β-hydroxyandrost-5-ene-17β-carbaldehydes. For the synthesis of analogous Δ(16)-17-oxadiazolyl derivatives, N,N'-disubstituted hydrazine intermediates were prepared from 3β-acetoxyandrosta-5,16-diene-17-carboxylic acid, which then underwent cyclodehydration in the presence of POCl3. The cyclization of steroidal N,N'-diacylhydrazines containing a saturated ring D with the Lawesson reagent afforded 17β-(1',3',4')-thiadiazoles in good yields. Most of the products were subjected to deacetylation in basic media in order to enlarge the compound library available for pharmacological studies. All of these derivatives were screened in vitro for their antiproliferative effects against four malignant human adherent cell lines (HeLa, A2780, MCF7 and A431) by means of the MTT assay. The 3β-hydroxy derivatives of the newly-synthesized 17-exo-heterocycles were tested in vitro to investigate their inhibitory effects on rat testicular C17,20-lyase. One of the 1,3,4-oxadiazolyl derivatives proved to exert noteworthy enzyme-inhibitory action, with an IC50 (0.065 μM) of the same order of magnitude as that of abiraterone.

Amino acid fluorides: viable tools for synthesis of peptides, peptidomimetics and enantiopure heterocycles

This review provides a broad perspective of the uses of amino acid fluorides in the synthesis of peptides and a wide range of other molecules including peptidomimetics, heterocycles and biologically active molecules.

Synthesis and bioactivity of 5-substituted-2-furoyl diacylhydazide derivatives with aliphatic chain

A series of 5-substituted-2-furoyl diacylhydazide derivatives with aliphatic chain were designed and synthesized. Their structures were characterized by IR, 1H NMR, elemental analysis, and X-ray single crystal diffraction. The anti-tumor bioassay revealed that some title compounds exhibited promising activity against the selected cancer cell lines, especially against the human promyelocytic leukemic cells (HL-60). Their fungicidal tests indicated that most of the title compounds showed significant anti-fungal activity. The preliminary structure-activity relationship showed that the aliphatic chain length and differences in the R2 group had obvious effects on the anti-tumor and anti-fungal activities. The bioassay results demonstrated that the title compounds hold great promise as novel lead compounds for further drug discovery.

Synthetic approaches and pharmacological activity of 1,3,4-oxadiazoles: a review of the literature from 2000-2012

This review provides readers with an overview of the main synthetic methodologies for 1,3,4-oxadiazole derivatives, and of their broad spectrum of pharmacological activities as reported over the past twelve years.