QSAR modeling of taxane analogues against colon cancer

Although taxanes such as paclitaxel and docetaxel are the two most important clinically available anticancer drugs for the treatment of various cancers (including colon cancer), the success of these two drugs has been tempered by the development of various unbearable side effects as well as multi-drug resistance. Therefore, it is essential to search new taxane analogues with improved anticancer activity and fewer side effects to gain the maximum benefits for colon cancer patients. In this paper, four series of taxane derivatives were used to correlate their inhibitory activities against colon cancers mainly with the hydrophobic and steric descriptors of their substituents in order to gain a better understanding of their chemical-biological interactions. QSAR results from this paper have suggested that the steric and hydrophobic parameters of the substituents are the two most important determinants for the activities of taxane analogues (under consideration) against colon cancers, with a major contribution coming from the molar refractivity of the substituents. Statistical diagnostics, internal validation, and external validation tests have validated all the QSAR models.