Design, synthesis, docking, ADMET and anticancer evaluations of N-alkyl substituted iodoquinazoline derivatives as dual VEGFR-2 and EGFR inhibitors

Abstract

Fifteen new 1-alkyl-6-iodoquinazoline derivatives 5a–d to 9a–e were designed and synthesized and their anticancer activities were evaluated against HepG2, MCF-7, HCT116 and A549 cancer cell lines via dual targeting of EGFR and VEGFR-2. The newly synthesized compounds were designed based on the structure requirements of the target receptors and were confirmed using spectral data. Compound 9c showed the highest anticancer activities with EC₅₀ = 5.00, 6.00, 5.17 and 5.25 μM against HepG2, MCF-7, HCT116 and A549 cell lines correspondingly. Moreover, compounds 5d, 8b, 9a, 9b, 9d, and 9e exhibited very good anticancer effects against the tested cancer cell lines. The highly effective seven derivatives 5d, 8b, 9a–e were examined against VERO normal cell lines to estimate their cytotoxic capabilities. Compounds 9c, 9b, 9d, 9a, 9e and 5d excellently inhibited VEGFR-2 activity with IC₅₀ = 0.85, 0.90, 0.90, 1.00, 1.20 and 1.25 μM respectively. Moreover, compounds 9c, 9d, 9e, 5d, 8b and 9b excellently inhibited EGFR^T790M activity with IC₅₀ = 0.22, 0.26, 0.30, 0.40, 0.45 and 0.50 μM respectively. Also, compounds 9c, 9d and 9e excellently inhibited EGFR^WT activity with IC₅₀ = 0.15, 0.20 and 0.25 μM respectively. As planned, compound 9c showed excellent dual EGFR/VEGFR-2 inhibitory activities. Consonantly, ADMET study was calculated in silico for the supreme three worthwhile compounds 9b, 9c and 9e in contrast to sorafenib and erlotinib as reference drugs. The obtained results concluded that, our compounds might be useful as prototype for design, optimization, adaptation and investigation to have more powerful and selective dual VEGFR-2/EGFR^T790M inhibitors with higher antitumor activity.