Synthesis, in vitro antitumor activity, dihydrofolate reductase inhibition, DNA intercalation and structure-activity relationship studies of 1,3,5-triazine analogues

A series of triazine-benzimidazoles with 4-fluoroaniline substitution has been designed and synthesized. These compounds were further substituted with different primary and secondary amines. The structures of newly synthesized compounds were confirmed by H-1, C-13 NMR, mass spectrometry and, in case of compound 18, by single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. The newly synthesized compounds were evaluated against 60 human tumor cell lines at one dose and five dose concentration levels. Compounds 7, 8 and 22 have been found to be the most active antitumor agents with GI(50) values of 1.77, 1.94 and 2.87 mu M, respectively. The synthesized compounds were then evaluated for their inhibitory activity to mammalian dihydrofolate reductase. Compound 22 was depicted as the most active compound for the inhibition of dihydrofolate reductase with IC50 value of 2.0 nM. DNA binding studies were also revealed strong interacting properties of triazine derivatives towards calf thymus-DNA. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.