Background:
Cancer disease is making a serious concern globally. Global cancer occurrence is steadily increasing every year. There is always a persistent need to develop new anticancer drugs with reduced side effects or act synergistically with the existing chemotherapeutics.
Objective:
Benzoxazoles are fused bicyclic nitrogen and oxygen-containing heterocyclic compounds and are considered biologically privileged scaffolds. We designed a synthetic route to link the benzoxazoles with oxadiazoles resulting in a better pharmacophore for anticancer activity.
Methods:
A series of novel amide derivatives of benzoxazole linked 1,3,4-oxadiazoles (10a-j) were synthesized and characterized by 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and mass spectroscopic techniques. The biological properties of the compounds were screened in vitro against four different tumor cell lines.
Results:
The results suggest that the compound 10b having 3,4,5-trimethoxy substitution on the phenyl ring exhibited potent anticancer activity in three cell lines (A549 = 0.13 ± 0.014 µM, MCF-7 = 0.10 ± 0.013 µM and HT-29 = 0.22 ± 0.017 µM). Notably, among the synthesized derivatives, compounds 10b, 10c, 10f, 10g, and 10i exhibited potent anticancer activity than the control IC50 in the range of 0.11 ± 0.02 to 0.93 ± 0.034 µM. Molecular docking simulation results showed compounds were stabilized by hydrogen bond and π-π interactions with the protein.
Conclusion:
The molecules showed comparable binding affinities with standard Combretastatin-A4. The present research work is preliminary and needs further studies to take the synthesized compounds to the next level in the cancer research field.
Synthesis and crystal structure of new monometallic Ni(ii) and Co(ii) complexes with an asymmetrical aroylhydrazone: effects of the complexes on DNA/protein binding property, molecular docking, and in vitro anticancer activity
