Novel 2-(2-alkylthiobenzenesulfonyl)-3-(phenylprop-2-ynylideneamino)guanidine derivatives as potent anticancer agents - Synthesis, molecular structure, QSAR studies and metabolic stability

Eur J Med Chem. 2017 Sep 29:138:357-370. doi: 10.1016/j.ejmech.2017.06.059. Epub 2017 Jun 29.

Abstract

A series of new 2-(2-alkylthiobenzenesulfonyl)-3-(phenylprop-2-ynylideneamino)guanidine derivatives have been synthesized and evaluated in vitro by MTT assays for their antiproliferative activity against cell lines of colon cancer HCT-116, cervical cancer HeLa and breast cancer MCF-7. The obtained results indicated that these compounds display prominent cytotoxic effect. The best anticancer properties have been observed for derivatives 44 (IC50 = 6-18 μM) and 45 (IC50 = 8-14 μM). Very good results of antiproliferative assays have been also shown for compounds 26, 36, and 46 and noticeable anticancer profile has been found for set of derivatives 34-39. Based on results of MTT assays the structure-activity relationships have been drawn. More in-depth biological research revealed that compounds 26, 33, 37, 39, 41 and 43 display cytotoxic effect only against cancer cells and do not inhibit the growth of non-malignant HaCaT cells. Furthermore, the novel series of derivatives have shown good metabolic stability, especially among the pharmacologically active compounds. To obtain a deeper insight into the molecular description of compounds activity the QSAR studies have been applied. Support vector machines (SVM) have been used to developed QSAR models for predicting the anti-proliferative activity of novel derivatives. The obtained SVM models have shown prognostic ability for HCT-116 and HeLa cell lines and as a result these models may be useful for further development of structurally similar derivatives with better biological properties.

Keywords: Anticancer activity; Benzenesulfonamides; Metabolic stability; QSAR studies; Synthesis.

MeSH terms

  • Antineoplastic Agents / chemistry
  • Antineoplastic Agents / metabolism
  • Antineoplastic Agents / pharmacology*
  • Cell Proliferation / drug effects
  • Cell Survival / drug effects
  • Dose-Response Relationship, Drug
  • Drug Screening Assays, Antitumor
  • Guanidine / analogs & derivatives
  • Guanidine / chemistry
  • Guanidine / pharmacology*
  • Humans
  • Molecular Conformation
  • Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship*
  • Tumor Cells, Cultured

Substances

  • Antineoplastic Agents
  • Guanidine