The quinoxaline scaffold is a promising platform for the discovery of active chemotherapeutic agents. Three series of quinoxaline derivatives were synthesized and biologically evaluated against three tumor cell lines (HCT116 human colon carcinoma, HepG2, liver hepatocellular carcinoma and MCF-7, human breast adenocarcinoma cell line), in addition to VEGFR-2 enzyme inhibition activity. Compounds VIId, VIIIa, VIIIc, VIIIe and XVa exhibited promising activity against the tested cell lines and weak activity against VEGFR-2. Compound VIIIc induced a significant disruption in the cell cycle profile and cell cycle arrest at the G2/M phase boundary. In further assays, the cytotoxic effect of the highly active compounds was determined using a normal Caucasian fibroblast-like fetal lung cell line (WI-38). Compound VIIIc could be considered as a lead compound that merits further optimization and development as an anti-cancer and an apoptotic inducing candidate against the HCT116 cell line.

Quinoxaline derivatives, also called benzopyrazines, are an important class of heterocyclic compounds. Quinoxalines have drawn great attention due to their wide spectrum of biological activities. They are considered as an important basis for anticancer drugs due to their potential activity as protein kinase inhibitors. In this review, we focus on the chemistry of the quinoxaline derivatives, the strategies for their synthesis, their potential activities against various tyrosine kinases, and on the structure-activity relationship studies reported to date.

Review: 116 refs.