Substituted furan sulfonamides as carbonic anhydrase inhibitors: Synthesis, biological and in silico studies

Carbonic Anhydrases (CAs) are a large family of zinc metalloenzymes that catalyze the reversible hydration of carbon dioxide involved in several of biological processes, such as respiration, calcification, acid-base balance, bone resorption, and the formation of aqueous humor, cerebrospinal fluid, saliva, and gastric acid. They show wide diversity in tissue distribution and in their subcellular localization. Fifteen novel furyl sulfonamides were designed, synthesized and evaluated against four human isoforms: hCA I, hCA II, hCA IV and hCA IX. Compounds appeared to be very active mostly against hCAI (8) and hCA IV (11) isoforms being more potent than reference drug acetazolamide (AAZ). It should be mentioned that four compounds were more active than AAZ against hCA IX isoform, with compound 13d to be selective against hCA I (SI 70), hCA II (SI 13.5) and hCA IV (SI 20). Furthermore, docking was performed for some of these compounds on all isoforms I order to understand the possible interactions with the active site. The most active compounds showed good bioavailability and drug likeness scores.