Thiazole as an Indispensable Scaffold in Anti‐Leukemic Agents: A Semicentennial Review

Abstract

Leukemia affects the body‘s blood‐forming tissues, especially the bone marrow and lymphatic system. Leukemia incidence varies between communities and between pathological kinds. Many treatment modalities exist for leukemia, such as chemotherapy, targeted therapy, radiation therapy, bone marrow transplantation, immunotherapy, and the engineering of immune cells to fight leukemia. Leukemia might be treated with a variety of pharmaceuticals, the most popular of which are imatinib (Gleevec), dasatinib (Sprycel), nilotinib (Tasigna), obinutuzumab (Gazyva), venetoclax (Venclexta), and so on. Thiazole is one of the scaffolds that are actively explored in leukemia. Derivatives having the thiazole nucleus have been surfacing as potent candidates in the treatment of leukemia for quite sometime now, but a consolidated report accumulating all these ventures is absent. Numerous naturally occurring substances, including flavones, alkaloids, anabolic steroids, and vitamin B1 (thiamine), include the basic thiazole molecule. Thiazole derivatives have been researched for their possible therapeutic effects in the treatment of leukemia. Thus, this review comprising reports regarding the effect of different thiazole‐based species in leukemia is a timely effort to the best of our knowledge. This review covers the chronological development of antileukemic thiazole‐based molecules, their synthesis, biological activity, and structure–activity relationships.