Docking and QSAR Studies of Aryl-valproic Acid Derivatives to Identify Antiproliferative Agents Targeting the HDAC8

Background: Histone deacetylase 8 (HDAC8) is a plausible target for the development of novel anticancer drugs using a metal-chelating group and hydrophobic moieties as pharmacophores. It is known that valproic acid (administered as its salt, sodium valproate; VPANa+) is an HDAC8 inhibitor characterized by its hydrophobic chains. Nevertheless, VPA is hepatotoxic and VPA analogues might be explored for less hepatotoxic antiproliferative compounds. Keywords: Docking studies, QSAR studies, Artificial Neuron Network, Anticancer test, 2D-BCUT descriptors, derivatives.