Bioinspired imidazo[1,2-a:4,5-c’]dipyridines with dual antiproliferative and anti-migrative properties in human cancer cells: The SAR investigation

Abstract

Herein, we report the design, synthesis and evaluation of novel bioinspired imidazo[1,2-a:4,5c’]dipyridines. The structural optimization identified four anti-proliferative compounds. Compounds 11, 18, 19 and 20 exhibited excellent anticancer activities in vitro with IC50 of 0.4–5 μM against three human cancer cell lines (MDA-MB-468, MDA-MB-435s and MDA-MB-231). These four compounds induced apoptosis in MDA-MB-231 cells in a dose-dependent manner, targeting different apoptotic proteins expression: 11 increased the expression of pro-apoptotic Bax protein while 18–20 reduced the level of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 protein. Compounds 18 and 19 also reduced MDA-MB-231 cells proliferation as measured by Ki-67 staining. Furthermore, compounds were also tested for the ability to inhibit cell migration in the highly aggressive human MDA-MB-435s cell line. Six compounds of this series (8, 15, 18, 22, 23, 24) inhibited cell migration by 41–50% while four compounds (20, 25, 27, 30) inhibited the migration by 53–62% in wound-healing experiments. Interestingly, compound 20 presented both antiproliferative and anti-migration activities and might be a promising anti-metastatic agent for cancer treatment.