Design and synthesis of (2-(phenylamino)thieno[3,2-d]pyrimidin-4-yl)(3,4,5-trimethoxyphenyl)methanone analogues as potent anti-tubulin polymerization agents

Abstract Anti-tubulin polymerization agents can disrupt tumor-vascular to exhibit anti-cancer potency. In this study, a series of substituted (2-(phenylamino)thieno[3,2-d]pyrimidin-4-yl)(3,4,5-trimethoxyphenyl)methanone analogues were designed and synthesized as anti-tubulin polymerization agents that interact with colchicine binding site. The anti-proliferative assay indicated that most of the target compounds displayed moderate to high potencies towards five tumor cell lines. The structure activity relationship about these analogues was summarized. The most potent compound 14 was selected to assay its inhibition on the tubulin polymerization. 14 displayed potent inhibition against tubulin polymerization with an IC50 value of 4.1 ± 0.1 μM. The colchicine competition assay demonstrated that 14 inhibited tubulin polymerization by binding to the colchicine-binding site of tubulin. The molecular modeling study elucidated the binding mode of 14 in the colchicine binding site. The result of confocal immunofluorescent study proved that 14 could quickly disrupt the microtubules of Hela cells in a concentration dependent manner. Some experiments at cellular level were conducted to investigate the effect of 14 on cellular morphology, cell colony formation, cell cycle distribution, cell apoptosis and mitochondrial changes. The results demonstrated that 14 was a potent anti-tubulin agent with strong concentration dependent effect of inhibition of colony formation, induction of G2/M arrest and induction of apoptosis through mitochondrial pathway.