Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of thienopyridine derivatives as c-Met kinase inhibitors

With cabozantinib as the precursor, a novel small molecule inhibitors of c-Met kinase with thieno [2,3-b] pyridine as the scaffold were designed, synthesized and evaluated for their biological activity against A549, Hela and MCF-7 cell lines. The in vitro activities of 16 compounds were tested by MTT method with cabozantinib as control drug. Most compounds had moderate to strong inhibitory activities on cells. Among them, compound 10 had the strongest inhibitory activity, which was superior to the lead compound cabozantinib. Its IC₅₀ values for A549, Hela and MCF-7 cells were 0.005, 2.833 and 13.581 μM, respectively. The colony formation assay demonstrated that compound 10 significantly inhibited the colony formation of A549 cells and suppressed their growth in a concentration-dependent manner. The wound healing assay showed that compound 10 could effectively inhibit the migration of cancer cells compared to a blank control group. The AO/EB assay demonstrated that compound 10 possesses the capability to effectively trigger apoptosis in a concentration-dependent manner. The elementary structure-activity relationship, molecular docking and pharmacokinetics studies revealed the significance of thieno [2,3-b] pyridine derivatives in anti-tumor activity.