Synthesis and antiproliferative activity studies of new functionalized pyridine linked thiazole derivatives

Ten new pyridine linked various substituted thiazole hybrids through (hydrazonomethyl)phenoxy-acetamide spacer were synthesized. The synthetic strategy was based on the reaction of the precursor 2-(4-((2-carbamothioylhydrazono)methyl)phenoxy)-N-(pyridin-2-yl)acetamide (3) with various α-halogenated carbonyl compounds (namely; phenacyl bromides, ethyl bromoacetate, diethyl bromomalonate and 3-chloropentane-2,4-dione). Moreover, the cytotoxicity properties of the synthesized compounds have been studied against liver carcinoma (HepG2), laryngeal carcinoma (Hep-2), prostate cancer (PC3), breast cancer (MCF-7) and normal fibroblast cells (WI38). The pyridine-thiazole compounds 7 and 10 revealed promising anticancer activity against MCF-7 and HepG2 cell lines with IC50 values in the range 5.36–8.76 μM compared to the activity of 5-fluorouracil. Docking study provided valuable insights for binding sites of the synthesized compounds with Rho-associated protein kinase (ROCK-1).