Novel 3-phenylquinazolin-2,4(1H,3H)-diones as dual VEGFR-2/c-Met-TK inhibitors: design, synthesis, and biological evaluation

Abstract

Multitarget anticancer drugs are more superior than single target drugs regarding patient compliance, drug adverse effects, drug-drug interactions, drug resistance as well as pharmaceutical industry economics. Dysregulation of both VEGFR-2 and c-Met tyrosine kinases (TKs) could result in development and progression of different human cancers. Herein, we reported a novel series of 3-phenylquinazolin-2,4(1H,3H)-diones with thiourea moiety as dual VEGFR-2/c-Met TKs. Compared to sorafenib, cabozantinib went behind VEGFR-2 inhibition to target c-Met TK. The dual VEGFR-2/c-Met inhibitory activity of cabozantinib is due to a longer HB domain than that of sorafenib. Based on pharmacophore of cabozantinib analogues, we designed new dual VEGFR-2/c-Met TKs. We synthesized the target compounds via a new single pot three-component reaction. The cytotoxic activity of synthesized compounds was conducted against HCT-116 colorectal cancer cell line. Compounds 3c and 3e exhibited the highest cytotoxic activity against HCT-116 cell line (IC50 1.184 and 3.403 µM, respectively). The in vitro enzyme inhibitory activity was carried out against both VEGFR-2 and c-Met TKs. Compound 3e has the highest inhibitory activity against both VEGFR-2/c-Met (IC50 = 83 and 48 nM, respectively). Docking studies showed that α-oxo moiety in quinazoline ring formed hydrogen bond HB with Met1160 residue in the adenine region of c-Met TK.