Pyrazole Containing Anti-HIV Agents: An Update

Pyrazole scaffolds have gained importance in drug discovery and development for various pharmacological activities like antiviral, antifungal, anticancer, antidepressant, antiinflammatory, antibacterial, etc. Additionally, the pyrazole moiety has shown potent anti-HIV activity as a core heterocycle or substituted heterocycles derivatives (mono, di, tri, tetra, and fused pyrazole derivatives). To assist the development of further potential anti-HIV agents containing pyrazole nucleus, here we have summarized pyrazole containing anti-HIV compounds that have been reported by researchers all over the world for the last two decades.

The present review concentrates on an assortment of pyrazole containing compounds, particularly for potential therapeutic activity against HIV.

Google Scholar, Pubmed, and SciFinder were searched databases with ''pyrazol'' keywords. Further, the year of publication and keywords ''Anti-HIV'' filter was applied to obtain relevant reported literature for anti-HIV agents containing pyrazole as a core or substituted derivatives.

This review article has shown the comprehensive compilation of 220 compounds containing pyrazole nucleus and possessing anti-HIV activity by sorting approximately 40 research articles from 2001 to date. 1-(4-Benzoylpiperazin-1-yl)-2-(4-fluoro-7-(1H-pyrazol-3-yl)-1H-pyrrolo[2,3-c]pyridin- 3-yl)ethane-1,2-dione (13), 3-(3-(2-(4-benzoylpiperazin-1-yl)-2-oxoacetyl)-4-fluoro-1H-pyrrolo[2,3- c]pyridin-7-yl)-1H-pyrazole-5-carboxamide (31), 3-(3-(2-(4-benzoylpiperazin-1-yl)-2-oxoacetyl)-4- fluoro-1H-pyrrolo[2,3-c]pyridin-7-yl)-1H-pyrazole-5-carboxamide (88), 3-cyanophenoxypyrazole derivative (130), and 4-(4-chlorophenyl)-5-(4-methyl-5-((4-nitrophenyl)diazenyl)thiazol-2-yl)-3- phenyl-5,6-dihydro-4H-pyrazolo[4,3-d]isoxazole (178) were the most potent mono-, di-, tri-, tetrasubstituted, and fused pyrazole derivatives, respectively, which have shown potent anti-HIV activity among all the described derivatives as compared with standard anti-HIV drugs.

This review article provides an overview of the potential therapeutic activity of pyrazole derivatives against HIV that will be helpful for designing pyrazole containing compounds for anti-HIV activity.