Design, green synthesis, molecular docking and anticancer evaluations of diazepam bearing sulfonamide moieties as VEGFR-2 inhibitors.

Novel series of diazepam bearing sulfonamide moieties 5a-f and 7a-c were designed, synthesized and evaluated for anticancer activity against HepG2, HCT-116 and MCF-7 cell lines. MCF-7 was the most sensitive cell line to the influence of the new derivatives. In particular, compound 5d was found to be the most potent derivative overall the tested compounds against the three HepG2, HCT116 and MCF-7 cancer cell lines with IC50 = 8.98 ± 0.1, 7.77 ± 0.1 and 6.99 ± 0.1 µM respectively. Compound 5d exhibited higher activity than sorafenib, (IC50 = 9.18 ± 0.6, 5.47 ± 0.3 and 7.26 ± 0.3 µM respectively), against HepG2 and MCF-7 but exhibited lower activity against HCT116 cancer cell lines respectively. Also, this compound displayed lower activity than doxorubicin, (IC50 = 7.94 ± 0.6, 8.07 ± 0.8 and 6.75 ± 0.4 µM respectively), against HepG2 and MCF-7 but higher activity against HCT116 cell lines respectively. Compounds 5b, 5c, 5d, 5e, 5f and 7c are respectively, 5.77, 8.58, 9.54, 5.71, 4.68 and 2.31 fold times more toxic in breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7, the most sensitive cells) than in VERO normal cells. All the synthesized compounds 5a-f and 7a-c were evaluated for their inhibitory activities against VEGFR-2. Among them, compound 5d was found to be the most potent derivative that inhibited VEGFR-2 at IC50 value of 0.10 ± 0.01 µM, which is equipotent to sorafenib IC50 value (0.10 ± 0.02 µM). Compound 5c exhibited excellent activity with IC50 value of 0.12 ± 0.01 µM which nearly equipotent to that of sorafenib. Compounds 5b, 5e and 5f exhibited very good activity with the same IC50 value of 0.14 ± 0.02 µM. Also, compounds 7c and 7b possessed good VEGFR-2 inhibition with IC50 values of 0.16 ± 0.06 and 0.17 ± 0.06 µM respectively which are more than the half activity of that of sorafenib. The data obtained from docking studies were highly correlated with that obtained from the biological screening.