Cancer is a leading cause of death all over the world. HGF/MET signaling pathway is involved in many cancers and its inhibition has great potential as an effective therapeutic intervention. A series of 1H-pyrrolo [2,3-b]pyridine derivatives has recently been identified with cytotoxic activity, and most of them exhibited considerable potencies with IC50 values under 10 µM. The present study was carried out with the specific aim to shed light upon the quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR) to design and predict the activity of new potent inhibitors using molecular fingerprints and some 2D and 3D descriptors. The built model was statistically significant in terms of R2 = 0.90 and R2pred = 0.91 values. Fingerprint PubchemFP759 (1-chloro-2-methylbenzene) was the most effective fragment in the biological activity and just appeared in the most active compound 7j with a pIC50 value of 8.0. A similarity search study was applied based on compounds 7c and 17e, with reported inhibitory activity against c-Met kinase, which showed that also other compounds could possess similar effects against c-Met enzyme. The most promising compound 7g-cl was subjected to docking and molecular dynamics simulation. Two hydrogen bonds between Lys1110, Met1160, and 7g-cl were stable during the equilibrium time range. The suggested modifications might be considered in future studies to design more efficient anticancer agents.
Keywords: Cancer; QSAR; c-Met; docking; molecular dynamics simulation.