Novel Benzimidazole/Hydrazone Derivatives as Promising Anticancer Lead Compounds: Design, Synthesis, and Molecular Docking Study

Abstract

A novel series of benzimidazole-hydrazone derivatives was designed and synthesized as a potential anti-cancer agents. The structure of the target compounds was assured using different spectroscopic methods such as IR , 1H NMR, 13C NMR and elemental analysis. These new compounds were examined and evaluated for their antiproliferative activities against 60 different cell lines. Combination of benzimidazole scaffold with hydrazone group exhibited promising anti-cancer activity. Compounds 3a and 3b showed significant activity against different cancer cells lines between 50-84 % of growth inhibition. A molecular modeling study for compounds 3a and 3b into VEGFR-2 active site was performed with reasonable docking scores.