Synthesis and biological evaluation of 3-aryl-quinolin derivatives as anti-breast cancer agents targeting ERα and VEGFR-2

SERMs are a series of important small molecular compounds to modulate estrogen receptor, such as tamoxifen. Although these drugs have showed great benefits in the treatment of breast cancer, the risk of endometrial cancer and endocrine resistance restrict their use. The reasonable designing of multi-target drugs can decrease the side effects and improve the tolerance of antineoplastic agents Studies have identified that VEGFR-2 plays a pivotal role in tumor angiogenesis and drug resistance. Besides, a combination of Tamoxifen and low dose of a VEGFR-2 inhibitor was reported to maximize therapeutic efficacy as well as to retard SERM resistant tumor growth. In this work, a series of 3-aryl-quinolin derivatives were designed to target to ERα and VEGFR-2 to eliminate the disadvantages of SERMs. We identified that compounds 12f and 13f displayed highly ERα binding affinities as well as relative intensity VEGFR-2 inhibitory activities. Moreover, this two compounds exhibited excellent anti-proliferative activities against MCF-7 and HUVEC cell lines with low micromolar IC50 (1–8 μM). A further study confirmed that compound 13f can reduce the expression of PgR mRNA, arrest cell cycle in MCF-7 breast cancer cells, and restrain the cell migration. Overall, based on the biological activities data, 13f can be chosen as a potential anti-cancer lead compound for further studying.