BackgroundThiazolidinediones (TZDs), also called glitazones, are five-membered carbon ring molecules commonly used for the management of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Recently, many prospective studies have also documented the impact of these compounds as anti-proliferative agents, though several negative side effects such as hepatotoxicity, water retention and cardiac issues have been reported. In this work, we synthesized twenty-six new TZD analogues where the thiazolidinone moiety is directly connected to an N-heterocyclic ring in order to lower their toxic effects.MethodsBy adopting a widely applicable synthetic method, twenty-six TZD derivatives were synthesized and tested for their antiproliferative activity in MTT and Wound healing assays with PC3 (prostate cancer) and MCF-7 (breast cancer) cells.ResultsThree compounds, out of twenty-six, significantly decreased cellular viability and migration, and these effects were even more pronounced when compared with rosiglitazone, a well-known member of the TZD class of antidiabetic agents. As revealed by Western blot analysis, part of this antiproliferative effect was supported by apoptosis studies evaluating BCL-xL and C-PARP protein expression.ConclusionOur data highlight the promising potential of these TZD derivatives as anti-proliferative agents for the treatment of prostate and breast cancer.

Molecular dynamics simulations provide valuable insights into the behavior of molecular systems. Extending the recent trend of using machine learning techniques to predict physicochemical properties from molecular dynamics data, we propose to consider the trajectories as multidimensional time series represented by 2D tensors containing the ligand–protein interaction descriptor values for each time step. Similar in structure to the time series encountered in modern approaches for signal, speech, and natural language processing, these time series can be directly analyzed using long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural networks or convolutional neural networks (CNNs). The predictive regression models for the ligand–protein affinity were built for a subset of the PDBbind v.2017 database and applied to inhibitors of tankyrase, an enzyme of the poly­(ADP-ribose)-polymerase (PARP) family that can be used in the treatment of colorectal cancer. As an additional test set, a subset of the Community Structure–Activity Resource (CSAR) data set was used. For comparison, the random forest and simple neural network models based on the crystal pose or the trajectory-averaged descriptors were used, as well as the commonly employed docking and molecular mechanics Poisson–Boltzmann surface area (MM-PBSA) scores. Convolutional neural networks based on the 2D tensors of ligand–protein interaction descriptors for short (2 ns) trajectories provide the best accuracy and predictive power, reaching the Spearman rank correlation coefficient of 0.73 and Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.70 for the tankyrase test set. Taking into account the recent increase in computational power of modern GPUs and relatively low computational complexity of the proposed approach, it can be used as an advanced virtual screening filter for compound prioritization.

A Schiff base ligand, 3‐(2‐(1‐(1H‐benzimidazol‐2‐yl)ethylidene)hydrazinyl)quinoxalin‐2(1H)‐one (BZHQO), has been synthesized by the condensation of 3‐hydrazinylquinoxalin‐2(1H)‐one and 1‐(1H‐benzoimidazol‐2‐yl) ethanone and characterized using spectral and single‐crystal X‐ray analyses. Mn (II), Co (II), Ni (II) and Cu (II) complexes of the BZHQO ligand have been synthesized and characterized. The interactions of the ligand and its metal complexes with calf thymus DNA have been investigated using absorption spectroscopy and the intrinsic binding constant has been evaluated. Agarose gel electrophoresis has been performed to study the abilities of the ligand and its metal complexes to cleave supercoiled pBR322 DNA into nicked circular form. In vitro anticancer activities of the Cu (II) and Ni (II) complexes have been investigated by MTT assay, using the cell lines HeLa, B16‐F10, SKOV3 and MCF7. The Cu (II) complex has been found to be active against HeLa, B16‐F10 and MCF7, while the Ni (II) complex has been found to be active against MCF‐7.

New efficient and convenient approaches have been devised for the synthesis of sitagliptin impurities. As a part of impurity profile study of an antidiabetic drug substance sitagliptin 1, we encountered with six process related impurities. These impurities were detected by utilizing simple techniques such as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and liquid chromatography‐mass spectrometry (LC–MS). All these impurities were synthesized and their presence in the sitagliptin sample was confirmed by co‐injection and matching the retention time with spiked impurities. The formation and control of these impurities during sitagliptin manufacture and synthesis of these impurities is discussed in detail. Synthesis of these impurities was accomplished by utilizing readily accessible starting materials, simple, convenient and concise reaction sequence.

To understand the stability, chelation behaviour, and biological activity of 4-Formylpyridinethiosemicarbazone (H4FPT), it is important to recognize its interactive geometry. Hence, computational studies on geometrically optimized structures of thione and thiol forms of H4FPT were performed. Binary metal complexes of the ligand, H4FPT (L) with the Ni(II) and Cu(II) metal ions (M), were synthesized and characterized by various spectroanalytical techniques as elemental analysis, molar conductance, magnetic susceptibility measurements, LC-MS, TGA, IR, UV-Visible, ESR, and powder XRD. Elemental analysis, LC-MS, and TGA studies indicate 1:2 (ML2) composition for mononuclear Ni(II) complex and 1:1 (ML) composition for dinuclear Cu(II) complex. Electronic absorption titrations, fluorescence quenching studies, and viscosity measurements suggest intercalative mode of binding of the complexes with calf thymus DNA (CT-DNA). These complexes also promote hydrolytic cleavage of plasmid pBR322. The ligand (H4FPT) and its complexes showed moderate-to-good activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial strains. The DPPH radical scavenging studies showed antioxidant nature of both complexes.