Design, synthesis and evaluation of some novel pyrazoline derivatives as potential anti-inflammatory and antitumor agents

Abstract

A new series of pyrazoline derivatives was designed and synthesized with the objective of developing agents with anti-inflammatory activity together with chemoprevention of hepatobiliary malignancies. The prepared compounds were evaluated for their anti-inflammatory activity using carrageenan-induced granuloma bioassay, using celecoxib as a reference drug. Ulcerogenic effect and acute toxicity profiles (ALD50) for the most active compounds were also determined. Compound 5c was proved to display anti-inflammatory activity better than celecoxib. Compounds 4b, 5d, 5c and 8 were found to be safer than indomethacin with respect to ulcerogenic effect and were well tolerated by the experimental animals with high safety margin (ALD50 >300 mg/Kg). Moreover, histopathological examination was carried out to detect the anti-inflammatory effect of the tested compounds on the livers of carrageenan-injected rats. On the other hand, compounds 4b, 4c, 4d, 5b, 5c, 5d, 6a, 6b, 6c, 6d, 8 and 9 were selected by the NCI to be evaluated for their anticancer activities but none has passed to the 5-dose assay. In addition, the ligand-receptor interactions of the most active compounds with COX-2 were investigated by performing docking studies using Molecular Operating Environment (MOE) version 2008.10.