Recent progress of napabucasin as privileged scaffold in the discovery of anticancer agents

Cancer is a major health issue worldwide, necessitating the development of novel treatments because treating this disease is challenging. Napabucasin, a furan-fused 1,4-naphthoquinone, exhibits significant anticancer activity through various molecular mechanisms and has become a privileged scaffold for developing antitumor therapeutics. In this review, we systematically evaluated recent progress in the use of napabucasin as a privileged scaffold for the discovery of antitumor drugs, focusing on structure-activity relationships (SARs), structural modification strategies, and the illustration of tumor inhibitory pathways from a mechanistic perspective. By conducting multidimensional assessments, we propose feasible directions for developing napabucasins with improved pharmacological properties for cancer treatment.