Benzimidazole Derivatives Endowed with Potent Antileishmanial Activity
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Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry ISSN: 1475-6366 (Print) 1475-6374 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ienz20 Benzimidazole derivatives endowed with potent antileishmanial activity Michele Tonelli, Elena Gabriele, Francesca Piazza, Nicoletta Basilico, Silvia Parapini, Bruno Tasso, Roberta Loddo, Fabio Sparatore & Anna Sparatore To cite this article: Michele Tonelli, Elena Gabriele, Francesca Piazza, Nicoletta Basilico, Silvia Parapini, Bruno Tasso, Roberta Loddo, Fabio Sparatore & Anna Sparatore (2018) Benzimidazole derivatives endowed with potent antileishmanial activity, Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry, 33:1, 210-226, DOI: 10.1080/14756366.2017.1410480 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14756366.2017.1410480 © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Published online: 13 Dec 2017. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 127 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ienz20 Download by: [Università degli Studi di Milano] Date: 08 January 2018, At: 06:19 JOURNAL OF ENZYME INHIBITION AND MEDICINAL CHEMISTRY, 2017 VOL. 33, NO. 1, 210–226 https://doi.org/10.1080/14756366.2017.1410480 RESEARCH PAPER Benzimidazole derivatives endowed with potent antileishmanial activity Michele Tonellia , Elena Gabrieleb , Francesca Piazzab, Nicoletta Basilicoc, Silvia Parapinid, Bruno Tassoa, Roberta Loddoe, Fabio Sparatorea and Anna Sparatoreb aDipartimento di Farmacia, Universita di Genova, Genova, Italy; bDipartimento di Scienze Farmaceutiche, Universita degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy; cDipartimento di Scienze Biomediche Chirurgiche e Odontoiatriche, Universita degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy; dDipartimento di Scienze Farmacologiche e Biomolecolari, Universita degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy; eDipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Biomediche, Universita di Cagliari, Cittadella Universitaria, Monserrato, Italy ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Two sets of benzimidazole derivatives were synthesised and tested in vitro for activity against promasti- Received 27 October 2017 gotes of Leishmania tropica and L. infantum. Most of the tested compounds resulted active against both Revised 22 November 2017 Accepted 22 November 2017 Leishmania species, with IC50 values in the low micromolar/sub-micromolar range. Among the set of 2-(long chain)alkyl benzimidazoles, whose heterocyclic head was quaternised, compound 8 resulted about KEYWORDS 100-/200-fold more potent than miltefosine, even if the selectivity index (SI) versus HMEC-1 cells was only Leishmania tropica and moderately improved. In the set of 2-benzyl and 2-phenyl benzimidazoles, bearing a basic side chain in infantum; promastigotes; position 1, compound 28 (2-(4-chlorobenzyl)-1-lupinyl-5-trifluoromethylbenzimidazole) was 12-/7-fold more anti-leishmania agents; alkyl potent than miltefosine, but exhibited a further improved SI. Therefore, compounds 8 and 28 represent benzimidazolium salts; interesting hit compounds, susceptible of structural modification to improve their safety profiles. 2-benzyl-1-lupinylbenzimi- dazole derivatives IC SI Compd. 50 (µM) HMEC Vero76 L. tropicaa 5.05 >27.1 - L. infantuma 10.09 >13.6 - L. tropicaa 0.19 4.10 30.5 L. infantuma 0.34 2.29 17.1 L. infantumb 0.31 - - L. tropicaa 3.70 4.58 >27 L. infantuma 4.76 3.61 >21 Downloaded by [Università degli Studi di Milano] at 06:19 08 January 2018 L. tropicaa 43.26 2.3 - Miltefosine L. infantuma 31.26 3.2 - L. infantumb 1.05 - - apromastigotes; bamastigotes CONTACT Michele Tonelli [email protected] Dipartimento di Farmacia, Universita degli Studi di Genova, 16132 Genova, Italy; Nicoletta Basilico nicoletta. [email protected] Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche Chirurgiche e Odontoiatriche, Universita degli Studi di Milano, Via Pascal 36, Milano, 20133 Italy; Anna Sparatore [email protected] Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Biomediche, Universita degli Studi di Milano, Via L. Mangiagalli, 25, 20133 Milano, Italy ß 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distri- bution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. JOURNAL OF ENZYME INHIBITION AND MEDICINAL CHEMISTRY 211 Introduction paromomycin and pentamidine are considered second-line drugs3a–c. Some other drugs as edelfosine, sitamaquine, fexinida- After malaria, leishmaniasis is the second most prevalent parasite zole, tamoxifene, imiquimod and pentoxyphylline are reported to infection worldwide for mortality in humans1. It is transmitted by give variable cure rates when used either alone or, better, in asso- the bite of a sand-fly infected by a flagellate protozoan of the ciation with antimonials to overcome resistance4 (Figure 1). genus Leishmania. Three different forms of the disease are All these drugs may cause several side effects and most of described: visceral, cutaneous and muco-cutaneous leishmaniasis. them are also expensive, and thus out of reach for the poor peo- The disease is endemic in many tropical and subtropical Countries, ple living in tropical and sub-tropical countries, where the disease leading annually to an estimated 700,000–1 million new cases and is endemic. The cited drugs exhibit very different chemical struc- 1 20,000–30,000 deaths , mostly due to the visceral form caused by tures and hit a variety of biological targets, but in several cases Leishmania donovani. The parasite exists in the ovoid non-flagel- the mechanism of action is still undefined or only partially known. late form (amastigote) and in the flagellate promastigote, found in To meet the need of novel more efficacious, safe and unexpen- the sand-fly. sive drugs to treat leishmaniasis, a number of studies are on- The therapy of leishmaniasis is still based on pentavalent anti- going, exploring a wide chemical space from several classes of monials (sodium stibogluconate and meglumine antimoniate) as natural products5 and or their semi-synthetic derivatives (sterols5, first choice drug2a,2b, whereas amphotericin B, miltefosine, mono-, sequi-, di- and tri-terpens6, alkaloids7, flavonoids8, etc.) to Downloaded by [Università degli Studi di Milano] at 06:19 08 January 2018 Figure 1. First and second line or synergistic agents to treat leishmaniasis: (a) meglumine antimoniate (predominant species in aqueous solution); (b) sodium stibogluc- onate (predominant species in aqueous solution); (c) amphotericin B; (d) miltefosine; (e) edelfosine; (f) paromomycin; (g) pentamidine; (h) sitamaquine; (i) imiquimod; (j) tamoxifene; (k) fexinidazole; (l) pentoxyphylline. 212 M. TONELLI ET AL. the most diversified synthetic compounds, from the simple chlor- Among the benzazolic derivatives, an important position is oacetoanilides9, to organometallics10a (as auranofin10b), aryldisele- held by the 2-trifluoromethyl-17 and 2-arylbenzimidazole18 deriva- nides11, adamantylidene alkyl phosphocoline12 and a variety of tives that, besides activity versus several other protozoa, display heterocycles13, particularly indole14, indazole15, benzotriazole16 antileishmanial action with potency in the low micromolar range. and benzimidazole17–20 derivatives. Examples of these compounds Interestingly, some bis-benzimidazoles19,20 exhibit sub-micromolar are depicted in Figures 2 and 3. IC50, resulting 7- to 26-fold more potent than pentamidine. Downloaded by [Università degli Studi di Milano] at 06:19 08 January 2018 Figure 2. Examples of investigational anti-leishmanial agents5–16. JOURNAL OF ENZYME INHIBITION AND MEDICINAL CHEMISTRY 213 Figure 3. Benzimidazole derivatives previously tested as anti-leishmanial agents17–20. Since many years we are interested in the chemistry and bio- responsible for cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL), and 33 of them logical properties of benzimidazole derivatives, pursuing varied (depending on availability) were also tested against L. infantum, pharmacological aims, from analgesic-anti-inflammatory action21, the causative agent of visceral leishmaniasis (VL). The two best conditioned avoidance response (CAR) inhibition22, choleretic compounds were also assayed against L. infantum amastigotes. activity and gastric protection23, antiviral24 and antitumoral25 activ- Downloaded by [Università degli Studi di Milano] at 06:19 08 January 2018 ities. In order to further explore the biocidal potential of benzimi- dazole derivatives, we deemed interesting to evaluate the Materials and methods antileishmanial activity of a set of 2-alkyl/2-benzyl benzimidazoles General whose heterocyclic head was quaternised to mimic the ammo- nium head of miltefosine and edelfosine. Additionally, we selected, Chemicals, solvents and reagents used for the syntheses were pur- among our in house library of benzimidazoles, a second set of chased from Sigma-Aldrich, Fluka or Alfa Aesar, and were used 2-arylbenzimidazoles 1-substituted with basic side chains that without any further purification unless otherwise stated. CC ¼ flash might be loosely related to sitamaquine. As the anti-leishmanial column chromatography. Melting points (uncorrected) were deter- 1 13 activity of sitamaquine analogues is mainly related to the length mined with a Buchi€ apparatus. H NMR and C NMR spectra were