Synthesis and Rational Design of New Appended 1,2,3-Triazole-uracil Ensembles as Promising Anti-Tumor Agents via In Silico VEGFR-2 Transferase Inhibition

Abstract

Angiogenesis inhibition is a key step towards the designing of new chemotherapeutic agents. In a view to preparing new molecular entities for cancer treatment, eighteen 1,2,3-triazole-uracil ensembles <b>5a</b>-<b>r</b> were designed and synthesized via the click reaction. The ligands were well characterized using ¹H-, ¹³C-NMR, elemental analysis and ESI-mass spectrometry. The in silico binding propinquities of the ligands were studied sequentially in the active region of VEGFR-2 using the Molegro virtual docker. All the compounds produced remarkable interactions and potentially inhibitory ligands against VEGFR-2 were obtained with high negative binding energies. Drug-likeness was assessed from the ADME properties. Cytotoxicity of the test compounds was measured against HeLa and HUH-7 tumor cells and NIH/3T3 normal cells by MTT assay. Compound <b>5h</b> showed higher growth inhibition activity than the positive control, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), against both HeLa and HUH-7 cells with IC₅₀ values of 4.5 and 7.7 μM respectively. Interestingly, the compounds <b>5a</b>-<b>r</b> did not show any cytotoxicity towards the normal cell lines. The results advance the position of substituted triazoles in the area of drug design with no ambiguity.