Development of pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidin-4-one scaffold as novel CDK2 inhibitors: Design, synthesis, and biological evaluation

Abstract

A series of pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidin-4-one scaffold were designed and synthesized as novel CDK2 inhibitors. By analyzing the common motifs of various known inhibitors, the designed compounds 1 were virtually screen for their inhibitory activity by docking into the active pocket of CDK2. The influence of different substitutes on the docking results was investigated. A total of 15 pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidin-4-ones 1 were synthesized by Paal-Knorr reaction, pyrimidine ring closure, bromination, Suzuki coupling reaction, amide formation and Knoevenagel condensation. The Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) was used to evaluate the inhibitory activity of pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidin-4-ones 1 in the breast cancer cell line MCF-7 in vitro using Etoposide as a reference control substance. The screening results demonstrated that the designed compounds have significant antiproliferative activity, and compounds 1e and 1j were the most active compounds with IC₅₀ values of 10.79 μM and 10.88 μM, respectively, being better than that of Etoposide (IC₅₀ = 18.75 μM). The enzyme inhibition assay was carried out against CDK2, the results indicated that the compounds 1e and 1j significantly inhibited CDK2 with IC₅₀ values of 1.71 μM and 1.60 μM.

Keywords: Biological evaluation; CDK2 inhibitor; Design; Pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidin-4-one; Synthesis.