An overview of quinazolines: Pharmacological significance and recent developments

Most of the drugs and pharmacologically relevant molecules possess heterocyclic ring structures and presence of hetero atoms or groupings divulges privileged specificities in their pharmacological targets. Especially the heterocyclic systems, quinazoline is a biologically imperative scaffold known to be linked with several pharmacological activities. Some of the protuberant pharmacological responses attributed to this system are analgesic, anti-inflammatory, anti-convulsant, sedative-hypnotic, anti-histaminic, anti-hypertensive, anti-cancer, anti-microbial, anti-tubercular and anti-viral activities. This multiplicity in the pharmacological response contours of quinazoline has attracted the consideration of medicinal chemists to explore this system to its multiple potential against numerous activities. Several of these synthetic and pharmacological investigations have been successively studied for structure-activity relationship (SAR) to correlate the particular structural features for their pharmacological target. The emerging understanding of quinazoline derivatives on their pharmacological target offer opportunities for novel therapeutics. This review principally emphases on the medicinal chemistry aspects including drug design, structure-activity relationships (SARs), and mechanism of actions of quinazoline derivatives. This review gives detailed attention on in vitro and in vivo pharmacological activities of quinazoline and its analogs in the perspective of drug discovery and its development.