Design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of 1-(5-(benzylthio)-1,3,4-thiadiazol-2-yl)-3-phenylurea derivatives as anticancer agents

A novel series of 1-(5-(benzylthio)-1,3,4-thiadiazol-2-yl)-3-phenylurea derivatives (5a–l) were designed and synthesized as sorafenib analogs. The in vitro cytotoxicity effects of synthesized compounds were evaluated against four different human cancer cells including MCF-7, HepG2, A549, and HeLa cell lines. The biological results showed that most of the compounds significantly prevented the proliferation of tested cancer cells. In particular, 2-F, 4-Cl, and 2,6-diF substituted derivatives (5d, 5g, and 5k) showed promising activities, especially against Hela cancer cells (IC50 = 0.37, 0.73 and 0.95 µM, respectively) which were significantly more potent than sorafenib as the reference drug (IC50 = 7.91 µM). Flow cytometry analysis revealed that the prototype compounds (5d, 5g, and 5k) significantly induced apoptotic cell death in HeLa cancer cells and blocked the cell cycle at the sub-G1 phase. Moreover, in silico docking study confirmed the binding of the prototype compound to the active site of VEGFR-2.