Design, synthesis and antitumor activity of Novel Sorafenib derivatives bearing pyrazole scaffold

Article abstract of DOI:10.1016/j.bmc.2017.09.003

Four series of Sorafenib derivatives bearing pyrazole scaffold (8a–m, 9a–c, 10a–e and 11a) were synthesized and characterized by NMR and MS. All of the target compounds were evaluated for the cytotoxicity against A549, HepG2, MCF-7, and PC-3 cancer cell lines and some selected compounds were further evaluated for the activity against VEGFR-2/KDR, BRAF, CRAF, c-Met, EGFR and Flt-3 kinases. Compounds 8b and 8i were more active than that of compounds 8h, 9a, especially the IC₅₀ value of compounds 8b on VEGFR-2 kinase was 0.56 μM. And compound 8b exhibited moderate to good activity toward c-Met and showed moderate to no activity against CRAF, c-Met, EGFR, Flt-3 kinases. Eleven of the target compounds exhibited moderate to good antitumor activities. The most promising compound 8b showed strong antitumor activities against A549, HepG2 and MCF-7 cell lines with IC₅₀ values of 2.84 ± 0.78 μM, 1.85 ± 0.03 μM and 1.96 ± 0.28 μM, which were equivalent to Sorafenib (2.92 ± 0.68 μM, 3.44 ± 0.50 μM and 3.18 ± 0.18 μM). Structure–activity relationships (SARs) and docking studies indicated that the pyrazole scaffolds exerted key effect on antitumor activities of target compounds. Substitutions of aryl group at C-3 positions had a significant impact on the antitumor activities, and 3-Br substitution produced the best potency.