Development of anti-breast cancer PI3K inhibitors based on 7-azaindole derivatives through scaffold hopping: Design, synthesis and in vitro biological evaluation

Breast cancer is the cancer with the highest incidence all over the world. Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase is an important regulator of intracellular signaling pathways, which is frequently mutated and overexpressed in majority of human breast cancers, and the inhibition of PI3K has been considered as a promising approach for the treatment of the cancer. Here, we report our design and synthesis of new 7-azaindole derivatives as PI3K inhibitors through the scaffold hopping strategy. By varying the groups at the 3-position of 7-azaindole, we identified a series of potent PI3K inhibitors, whose antiproliferative activities against two human breast cancer MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cell lines were evaluated. Representative derivatives FD2054 and FD2078 showed better activity than BKM120 in antiproliferation, reduced the levels of phospho-AKT and induced cell apoptosis. All these results suggested that FD2054 and FD2078 are potent PI3K inhibitors that could be considered as potential candidates for the development of anticancer agents.