Nimesulide Containing Dimethoxy Benzamide: From Fever Reduction to Cancer Treatment

Drugs that are used to treat one disease can also be repurposed to treat another under the medication repurposing paradigm. The objective of this research effort is to develop new chemical compounds that selectively target the tubulin protein, which is crucial for cell movement, maintaining shape integrity, and promoting cell proliferation. Remarkably, malignant cells exhibit greater tubulin activity than benign cells; this finding raises the possibility of targeting the tubulin protein for cancer treatment. The synthesized compounds were fully characterized by physical and chemical techniques, including proton and carbon NMR, FT-IR, and mass spectroscopy, to confirm their molecular weights and chemical structures. In addition, using single-crystal X-ray diffraction, the unit-cell parameters, cell size, atom positions within the lattice, and structures of the generated compounds were confirmed, with a good yield of 90-94%. The MTT assay was used to evaluate the dose-dependent effect of the compounds on cancer cell viability. Results indicated significantly decreased viability of the MDA-MB-468 breast cancer and DU145 prostate cancer cell lines, with IC₅₀ values of 3.89 ± 0.0437 and 2.298 ± 0.0513 nM, respectively. Nimesulide derivatives demonstrated remarkable anticancer properties, indicating their promise as future therapies for breast and prostate cancer. Parallel molecular docking results further supported these biological findings.