New arylpyrazoline-coumarins: Synthesis and anti-inflammatory activity.

To develop new anti-inflammatory agents with improved pharmaceutical profiles, a series of new phenyl-pyrazoline-coumarin derivatives (4a∼4m) were designed and synthesized. Compounds 4a and 4b were determined by X-ray crystallography. All of the compounds have been screened for their anti-inflammatory activity characterized by evaluating their inhibition against LPS-induced IL-6 release. Among them, compound 4m showed the highest anti-inflammatory activity with inhibiting IL-6, TNF-α and nitric oxide (NO) production lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated. The further study showed that title compound 4m could significantly suppress expressions of nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and the productions of IL-6, TNF-α, NO through NF-κB/MAPK signaling pathway. The anti-inflammatory activity of compound 4m was determined by carrageenan induced paw edema. Furthermore in vivo evaluation results indicated that compound 4m could inhibit AA-induced rat ankle joints.