Design and discovery of quinazoline- and thiourea-containing sorafenib analogs as EGFR and VEGFR-2 dual TK inhibitors

Abstract

Both EGFR and VEGFR-2 play a critical role in tumor growth, angiogenesis and metastasis, and targeting EGFR and VEGFR-2 simultaneously represents a promising approach to cancer treatment. In this work, a series of novel quinazoline- and thiourea-containing sorafenib analogs (10a–v) were designed and synthesized as EGFR and VEGFR-2 dual TK inhibitors. Their in vitro enzymatic inhibitory activities against EGFR and VEGFR-2, and antiproliferative activities against HCT-116, MCF-7 and B16 cell lines were evaluated and described. Most of the compounds showed potent activities against both cell lines and TK kinases. Compounds 10b and 10q which exhibited the most potent inhibitory activities against EGFR (IC50 = 0.02 µM and 0.01 µM, respectively), VEGFR-2 (IC50 = 0.05 µM and 0.08 µM, respectively), and good antiproliferative activities, also displayed competitive anti-tumor activities than sorafenib in vivo by B16 melanoma xenograft model test.