Discovery of boron-containing compounds as Aβ aggregation inhibitors and antioxidants for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease

A novel series of boron-containing compounds were designed, synthesized and evaluated as multi-target-directed ligands against Alzheimer's disease. The biological activity results demonstrated that these compounds possessed a significant ability to inhibit self-induced Aβ aggregation (20.5–82.8%, 20 μM) and to act as potential antioxidants (oxygen radical absorbance capacity assay using fluorescein (ORAC-FL) values of 2.70–5.87). In particular, compound 17h is a potential lead compound for AD therapy (IC50 = 3.41 μM for self-induced Aβ aggregation; ORAC-FL value = 4.55). Compound 17h also functions as a metal chelator. These results indicated that boron-containing compounds could be new structural scaffolds for the treatment of AD.