Synthesis, computational studies and assessment of in vitro inhibitory activity of umbelliferon-based compounds against tumour-associated carbonic anhydrase isoforms IX and XII

• Main Authors: Francesca Mancuso, Laura De Luca, Andrea Angeli, Sonia Del Prete, Clemente Capasso, Claudiu T. Supuran, Rosaria Gitto
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2020-01-01
• Series: Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry
• Subjects: carbonic anhydrase inhibitors (cais); tumour-associated ca isoforms; coumarin; pechmann condensation; fries rearrangement
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14756366.2020.1786821

Coumarins are widely diffused secondary metabolites possessing a plethora of biological activities. It has been established that coumarins represent a peculiar class of human carbonic anhydrase (hCA) inhibitors having a distinct mechanism of action involving a non-classical binding with amino acid residues paving the entrance of hCA catalytic site. Herein, we report the synthesis of a small series of new coumarin derivatives 7-11, 15, 17 prepared via classical Pechmann condensation starting from resorcinol derivatives and suitable β-ketoesters. The evaluation of inhibitory activity revealed that these compounds possessed nanomolar affinity and high selectivity towards tumour-associated hCA IX and XII over cytosolic hCA I and hCA II isoforms. To investigate the binding mode of these new coumarin-inspired inhibitors, the most active compounds 10 and 17 were docked within hCA XII catalytic cleft.