Novel 3‐Substituted‐2<i>H</i>‐Chromene Scaffold Based Fluorinated Hydrophobic Fragment as In‐Vitro Antiproliferative Agents and Apoptosis Inducers Targeting Both VEGFR‐2/BRAF^V600E and <i>h</i>‐DHFR With Molecular Docking Simulation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recently, there has been an increasing interest in the use of protein kinase inhibitors as a therapeutic strategy for the treatment of cancer. In this study, a new series of 2 H ‐chromene derivatives ( 2 ‐ 5 and 6 ‐ 8 ) and 3 H ‐benzo[ f ]chromene carbohydrazide derivative ( 9 ) were synthesized. The structure of the designed derivatives was characterized by IR, 1 H/ 13 C NMR, and elemental analysis. Moreover, the cytotoxic activity of the newly synthesized chromenes was evaluated against breast cancer cell lines (MDA‐MB‐231 and MCF‐7) and a cervical cancer cell line (HeLa). The results of these evaluations demonstrated promising activity, ranging from good to moderate. Additionally, the lung fibroblast cell line (WI‐38), as a normal cell line, was also utilized to assess the active derivatives' selectivity. Among the compounds tested, chromene derivative 3 demonstrated the highest potency, exhibiting IC 50 values of 5.36 ± 0.50, 7.82 ± 0.60, and 9.28 ± 0.70 µM against the MDA‐MB 231, MCF‐7, and HeLa cell lines, respectively. The potential of chromone 3 as a multi‐targeted anticancer agent was assessed by evaluating its activity against BRAF and VEGFR‐2. Notably, the most promising chromene derivative 3 demonstrated significant VEGFR2 activity with an IC 50 value of 0.224 µM compared to sorafenib's 0.045 µM, while exhibiting inhibitory activity against BRAF with an IC 50 value of 1.695 µM relative to Vemurafenib's IC 50 value of 0.468 µM. In addition, compound 3 inhibits the DHFR enzyme with an IC 50 value of 2.217 ± 0.014 µM, compared to methotrexate (IC 50 = 0.4315 ± 0.019 µM). These results revealed that the compound has multifaceted mechanisms of action that may augment its therapeutic effectiveness. In addition, compound 3 causes overexpression of caspase‐3 and Bax by 6.13 and 8.85‐fold, respectively. It also downregulates the antiapoptotic Bcl‐2 level by 0.4775‐fold compared to the untreated MDA‐MB 231 cells. Flow cytometry analysis of MDA‐MB‐231 cells indicates that compound 3 induces cell cycle arrest in the G0‐G1 phase, with an observed percentage of 73.15%. The in‐silico toxicity prediction was evaluated and demonstrated a good toxicity profile. Finally, molecular docking studies supported these findings by confirming strong binding affinities of the derivatives to VEGFR‐2, BRAF, and DHFR.