Recent advances in the chemistry and biology of pyridopyrimidines

The interest in pyridopyrimidine cores for pharmaceutical products makes this scaffold a highly useful building block for organic chemistry. These derivatives have found applications in various areas of medicine such as anticancer, CNS, fungicidal, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and antibacterial therapies. This review mainly focuses on the progress achieved since 2004 in the chemistry and biological activity of pyridopyrimidines.

DNA interaction and cytotoxicity of a new series of indolo[2,3-b]quinoxaline and pyridopyrazino[2,3-b]indole derivatives

Absorption, melting temperature and linear dichroism measurements were performed to investigate the interaction with DNA of a series of 16 tricyclic and tetracyclic compounds related to the antiviral agent B-220. The relative DNA affinity of the test compounds containing an indolo[2,3-b]quinoxaline, pyridopyrazino[2,3-b]indoles or pyrazino[2,3-b]indole planar chromophore varies significantly depending on the nature of the side chain grafted onto the indole nitrogen. Compounds with a dimethylaminoethyl chain strongly bind to DNA and exhibit a preference for GC-rich DNA sequences, as revealed by DNase I footprinting. Weaker DNA interactions were detected with those bearing a morpholinoethyl side chain. The incorporation of a 2,3-dihydroxypropyl side chain does not reinforce the DNA interaction compared with the unsubstituted analogues. Both the DNA relaxation assay and cytotoxicity study using two human leukemia cell lines sensitive (HL-60) or resistant (HL-60/MX2) to the antitumor drug mitoxantrone, indicate that topoisomerase II is not a privileged target for the test compounds which only weakly interfere with the catalytic activity of the DNA cleaving enzyme. Cytometry studies showed that the most cytotoxic compounds induce a massive accumulation of cells in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle. Collectively, the data show a relationship between DNA binding and cytotoxicity in the indolo[2,3-b]quinoxaline series.

Synthesis, cytotoxicity, DNA interaction and topoisomerase II inhibition properties of tetrahydropyrrolo[3,4-a]carbazole-1,3-dione and tetrahydropyrido-[3,2-b]pyrrolo[3,4-g]indole-1,3-dione derivatives

Three tetrahydropyrrolo[3,4-a]carbazole-1,3-diones (6--8) and two tetrahydropyrido[3,2-b]pyrrolo[3,4-g]indole-1,3-diones (11--12) have been synthesized. Their interaction with DNA was probed by absorption and thermal melting studies. Compounds 8 and 12 both equipped with a hydroxyethyl-aminoethyl side-chain demonstrated higher affinities for poly(dA-dT)(2) than compounds 6, 7 and 11 bearing a dimethylaminoethyl side-chain. Circular and electric linear dichroism measurements showed that all five drugs behave as typical DNA intercalating agents. A plasmid cleavage assay was used to evaluate the capacity of the drugs to inhibit human topoisomerase II. Compounds 8 and 12 which bind strongly to DNA were found to stabilize DNA-topoisomerase II covalent complexes but their topoisomerase II inhibitory properties do not correlate with their cytotoxic potential. Compounds 6 and 7 are essentially inactive whereas compounds 8, 11 and 12 exhibit a high toxicity to P388 murine leukemia cells and provoke a marked accumulation in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle. These compounds form a new class of DNA-targeted antitumor agents.

Synthesis and in vitro cytotoxic evaluation of N-substituted benzo[5,6]cycloheptal[b]indoles

A new series of V-substituted benzo[5,6]cyclohepta[b]indole derivatives were synthesised and evaluated for in vitro cytotoxic activities against L1210 murine leukemia and HT29 cell lines. Among them, several compounds showed potent antitumor activity and blocked cell cycle progression of L1210 cells in G2+M phase.

DNA but not topoisomerases is a target for a cytotoxic benzo[5,6]cyclohepta[b]indol-6-one derivative

The interaction of a newly designed benzocycloheptaindol-6-one derivative with DNA has been investigated by complementary spectroscopic techniques including absorption, circular and linear dichroism. Footprinting measurements were performed to delineate the sequence-selectivity of the drug-DNA interaction and a plasmid relaxation assay was used to study the effects of the drug on human DNA topoisomerases I and II. The results clearly indicated that the test compound behaves as a typical DNA intercalating agent but does not stimulate DNA cleavage by topoisomerases. At the cellular level, the cytometry measurements showed that the drug provoked a marked accumulation of HL60 human leukemia cells in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle. DNA is thus identified as a valid target for this new series of drugs particularly toxic to human (HL60) and murine (P388) leukemia cells.

3D-QSAR CoMFA study on imidazolinergic I(2) ligands: a significant model through a combined exploration of structural diversity and methodology

Displaying an unprecedented structural diversity, 119 I(2) ligands, and their pK(i) values, were collected and submitted to a comparative molecular fields analysis (CoMFA) study. They were discerned into three structural subsets (A, B, C), to explore the I(2) 3D-QSARs from finite structural systems (A, B, C) to more complex ones (AB, AC, BC, ABC). In addition, various key steps of the CoMFA methology were explored. The applied method used two pharmacophore templates and seven molecular field combinations (electrostatic, lipophilic, steric), as well as eight alignment methods (two point-by-point and six similarity-based variations). That way, 644 CoMFA models were obtained and further selected according to their predictive ability through two filters. The first filter was mainly based on the q(2), which internally evaluates the predictive ability from the training set. For the second filter, the predictive ability was externally evaluated through the prediction of test sets. Finally, one model was extracted from the whole data as the best. Indeed, it combines three features of upmost importance for the further design of ligands endowed with high I(2) affinity: structural diversity (n = 73), robustness (N = 9, r(2) = 0.96, s = 0. 28, F = 148), and a great fully assessed predictive ability (q(2) = 0.50, r(2)(test set) = 0.81, n(test set) = 46). On the basis of structural data and CoMFA isocontours, some elements of the I(2) tridimensional pharmacophore are also suggested.

New substituted 1,4-benzoxazine derivatives with potential intracellular calcium activity

Substituted 1,4-benzoxazines bearing an amino side chain at the 2-position were prepared and were found to have a moderate activity on intracellular calcium. Of the compounds studied it was found that those which possess a homoveratrylamino moiety exhibited superior potency. The chain length and the nature of the amine (4-fluorophenylpiperazine, 4-fluorobenzhydryloxyethylamine, N-substituted homoveratrylamine) is discussed. The 4-benzyl-3, 4-dihydro-2-[3-[[2-(3,4-dimethoxyphenyl)ethyl]amino]propyl]-2H-1, 4-benzoxazine (3c) is the most potent derivative of the series with a ratio of IC50 values against PE (phenylephrine) and K+ of 2.1. Under these test conditions a ratio near 1 indicates potential intracellular calcium activity while a ratio greater than 100 an action on extracellular calcium influx.