Repositioning HIV-1 Integrase Inhibitors for Cancer Therapeutics: 1,6-Naphthyridine-7-carboxamide as a Promising Scaffold with Drug-like Properties

Among a large number of HIV-1 integrase (IN) inhibitors, the 8-hydroxy-[1,6]naphthyridines (i.e., L-870,810) were one of the promising class of antiretroviral drugs developed by Merck Laboratories. In spite of its remarkable potency and efficacy, unfortunately upon completion of phase I clinical studies, development of L-870,810 was halted. Because of its desirable pharmacological and pharmaceutical properties we were intrigued to design novel analogues of L-870,810 with goals to (1) improve upon limitations of naphthyridine-7-carboxamides as antiviral agents and (2) to reposition their use as innovative cytotoxic agents for cancer therapeutics. Herein, we report on the design and synthesis of a series of 1,6-naphthyridine-7-carboxamides with various substitutions at the 5- and 8-positions. All the new 5-substituted-8-hydroxy-[1,6]naphthyridines were potent IN inhibitors and the 5-substituted-8-amino-[1,6]naphthyridines were significantly cytotoxic. Further optimization of the 5,8-disubstituted-[1,6]naphthyridines with structural variation on 7-carboxamide delivered novel compounds with significant cytotoxicity in a panel of cancer cell lines and effective inhibition against select oncogenic kinases.