Development of Phenothiazine Hybrids with Potential Medicinal Interest: A Review

The molecular hybridization approach has been used to develop compounds with improved efficacy by combining two or more pharmacophores of bioactive scaffolds. In this context, hybridization of various relevant pharmacophores with phenothiazine derivatives has resulted in pertinent compounds with diverse biological activities, interacting with specific or multiple targets. In fact, the development of new drugs or drug candidates based on phenothiazine system has been a promising approach due to the diverse activities associated with this tricyclic system, traditionally present in compounds with antipsychotic, antihistaminic and antimuscarinic effects. Actually, the pharmacological actions of phenothiazine hybrids include promising antibacterial, antifungal, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antimalarial, analgesic and multi-drug resistance reversal properties. The present review summarizes the progress in the development of phenothiazine hybrids and their biological activity.

Perphenazine and Prochlorperazine Decrease Glioblastoma U87-MG Cells Migration and Invasion: Analysis of the ABCB1 and ABCG2 Transporters, E-Cadherin, α-Tubulin, and Integrins (α3, α5, and β1) Levels.

Purpose: Glioblastoma multiforme is the most frequent malignant brain tumor as well as one of the most lethal and untreatable human tumors with a very poor survival rate. Thus, novel and effective strategies of treatment are required. Integrins play a crucial role in the regulation of cellular adhesion and invasion. Moreover, integrins and alpha-tubulin are very important in cell migration, while E-cadherin plays the main role in tumor metastasis. Their ability to penetrate the BBB and signs of intracerebral activity are very important in glioblastoma therapy. ABC transporters ABCB1 and ABCG2, which are localized in the brain endothelial capillaries of BBB, play a crucial role in the development of multidrug resistance, and are modulated by phenothiazine derivatives. Methods: The impact on the motility of human glioblastoma U87-MG was evaluated with a wound healing assay; cellular migration, and invasion by the transwell assay, while ABCB1, ABCG2, E-cadherin, α-tubulin, and integrins content was determined with the Western blot.Results: This study explores the effect of perphenazine and prochlorperazine on ABCB1, ABCG2, E-cadherin, α-tubulin, and integrins (α3, α5, and β1) amount as well as on migration and invasion ability of human glioblastoma (U87-MG) cells. The results suggest that perphenazine and prochlorperazine modulate multidrug resistance proteins (they decrease ABCB1 and increase ABCG2), E-cadherin, α-tubulin, and integrins amount as well as impair migration and invasion of the U87-MG cell line. Conclusions: The decrease of migration and invasion ability after phenothiazine derivatives treatment due to the increase of ABCG2 and E-cadherin as well as the decrease of α-tubulin, and integrins amounts can support the hypothesis that perphenazine and prochlorperazine have the anticancer effect on human glioblastoma U87-MG cells.

Towards Property Profiling: SYNTHESIS and SAR Probing of New Tetracyclic Diazaphenothiazine Analogues

A series of new tertiary phenothiazine derivatives containing a quinoline and a pyridine fragment was synthesized by the reaction of 1-methyl-3-benzoylthio-4-butylthioquinolinium chloride with 3-aminopyridine derivatives bearing various substituents on the pyridine ring. The direction and mechanism of the cyclization reaction of intermediates with the structure of 1-methyl-4-(3-pyridyl)aminoquinolinium-3-thiolate was related to the substituents in the 2- and 4-pyridine position. The structures of the compounds were analyzed using 1H, 13C NMR (COSY, HSQC, HMBC) and X-ray analysis, respectively. Moreover, the antiproliferative activity against tumor cells (A549, T47D, SNB-19) and a normal cell line (NHDF) was tested. The antibacterial screening of all the compounds was conducted against the reference and quality control strain Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 29213, three clinical isolates of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). In silico computation of the intermolecular similarity was performed using principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) on the pool of structure/property-related descriptors calculated for the novel tetracyclic diazaphenothiazine derivatives. The distance-oriented property evaluation was correlated with the experimental anticancer activities and empirical lipophilicity as well. The quantitative shape-based comparison was conducted using the CoMSA method in order to indicate the potentially valid steric, electronic and lipophilic properties. Finally, the numerical sampling of similarity-related activity landscape (SALI) provided a subtle picture of the SAR trends.

DITHIOCARBAMATE SUBSTITUTED PHENOTHIAZINE DERIVATIVES: IN SILICO EXPERIMENTS, SYNTHESIS, AND BIOLOGICAL EVALUATION

Objective: The present study was designed to study the anticancer activity of a series of novel analogs of phenothiazine with dithiocarbamate as a side chain. Methods: A novel series of derivatives containing dithiocarbamate as a side chain at the tenth position of phenothiazine nucleus were synthesized, characterized by spectral analysis, and evaluated for their antimitotic and antioxidant activity using germinated Bengal gram seeds and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method, respectively. A quantitative estimate of drug-likeness was also performed, which calculated the molecular properties and screened the molecules based on drug-likeness rules. Further, molecular docking study was performed for finding the binding affinity with tubulin protein to rationalize their anticancer activity. Results: The results revealed that the antioxidant activity of compounds 3e, 3g, 3i, 3j and standard Ascorbic acid were 10 mmol, 14 mmol, 16 mmol, 16 mmol and 35 mmol, respectively. Further compounds 3e, 3g, 3h and 3i have shown promising antimitotic activity. Compound 3i (-9 K. Cal/mol) showed the highest binding energies towards tubulin protein when compared to standard drug colchicine (-8.6 K. Cal/mol). Among all, compound 3i showed promising antimitotic and antioxidant activity, which correlated with insilico docking studies. Conclusion: Dithiocarbamate substituted phenothiazine derivatives proved to be encouraging leads as tubulin inhibitors.

Perphenazine And Prochlorperazine Decrease Glioblastoma Cells Migration And Invasion: Analysis of ABCB1 And ABCG2 Transporters, e-cadherin, α-tubulin, And Integrins (α3, α5, and β1) Expression in U87-MG Cells

Purpose: Glioblastoma multiforme is the most frequent malignant brain tumor as well as one of the most lethal and untreatable human tumors with a very poor survival rate (up to 18 months). Thus, novel and effective strategies of treatment are still required since resistance and metastasis are major problems of anticancer chemotherapy. Interestingly, ABC transporters, which play a crucial role in the development of multidrug resistance, are modulated by phenothiazine derivatives, while cancer metastasis, migration, and invasion are regulated by cadherins, α-tubulin, and integrins. Methods: The impact on the motility of human glioblastoma U87-MG was performed by wound healing assay, cellular migration and invasion were performed by transwell assay, while ABCB1, ABCG2, E-cadherin, α-tubulin, and integrins (α3, α5, and β1) content were determined by Western blot.Results: The present study explores the effect of perphenazine and prochlorperazine on ABCB1, ABCG2, E-cadherin, α-tubulin, and integrins (α3, α5, and β1) amount as well as migration and invasion ability of human glioblastoma (U87-MG) cells suggesting that phenothiazine derivatives impair multidrug resistance proteins (ABCB1 and ABCG2), E-cadherin, α-tubulin, and integrins amount as well as impair migration and invasion of the U87-MG cell line. Conclusions: The study demonstrated that an increase of ABCG2 and E-cadherin as well as a decrease of α-tubulin, and integrins amount may explain the decrease of migration and invasion ability after phenothiazine derivatives treatment. Moreover, only prochlorperazine significantly reduces the rate of cell migration. Thus, the drug may be considered for the development of new and effective glioblastoma therapy.

Phenothiazine Derivatives as Potential Antiproliferative Agents: A Mini-Review

: Research for discovering chemical entities with antiproliferative properties to combat globally rising cancer cases has witnessed tremendous interest in recent years. Phenothiazines possess novel antiproliferative potentials and have often be described as crucial sources of scaffolds for anticancer drug discovery. Some several phenothiazine-hybrid compounds recently synthesized are effective against various cancer cell lines with improved multidrug resistance. In synthesizing these phenothiazine-derivatives, therapeutic potentials of the phenothiazines are exploited, and they are enriched by molecular hybridization with moieties known to possess great pharmacological profiles. This article critically reviews the anticancer properties of phenothiazine derivatives and focuses on the possibility of the derivation of the leads for a further spectrum of antiproliferative activities.