Synthesis and evaluation of N-((1-benzyl-1H-1,2,3-triazol-4-yl)methyl)nicotinamides as potential anticancer agents that inhibit tubulin polymerization

A series of N-((1-benzyl-1H-1,2,3-triazol-4-yl)methyl)nicotinamides (4) was synthesized and tested for their anticancer activity against a panel of 60 human cancer cell lines. Some of the representative compounds such as 4a, 4b, 4f, 4g, 4i and 4t were selected for the five dose study and amongst them 4g and 4i displayed significant anticancer activity with GI₅₀ values ranging from 0.25 to 8.34 and 1.42 to 5.86 μM, respectively. Cell cycle analysis revealed that these compounds induced cell cycle arrest at G2/M phase in MCF-7 cells. The most active compound in this series 4g also inhibited tubulin polymerization with IC₅₀ value 1.93 μM superior to that of E7010. Moreover, assay to investigate the effect on caspase-9, Hoechst staining and DNA fragmentation analysis suggested that these compounds induced cell death by apoptosis. Docking experiments showed that they interact and bind efficiently with tubulin protein. Overall, the results demonstrate that N-((1-benzyl-1H-1,2,3-triazol-4-yl)methyl)nicotinamide scaffold possess anticancer property by inhibiting the tubulin polymerization.