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p53-MDM2/MDMX interaction inhibitors represent the prospective agents for targeted anticancer therapy in tumors expressing wild-type p53 protein. Imidazoline-based MDM2-targeted inhibitors of such type, nutlins, contain halogensubstituted phenyl rings, which dramatically decrease the solubility of compounds in water. The addition of suitable hydrophilic substituents in benzene rings and to imidazoline nitrogen can improve the compound's water solubility. In this study, we have synthesized novel hydrophilic cis-2,4,5-tris(alkoxyphenyl)imidazolines and studied the influence of N-sulfonyl substituent on protein-protein interaction compared to unsubstituted alkoxy-compounds. The biological activity of the obtained compounds was studied using Western blot analysis on A549, RKO and SH-SY5Y cancer cell lines. It was found that the derivatives are able to inhibit MDM2/MDMX-p53 interaction, promote p53 stabilization and induce p21 expression in the concentrations from 500 nM.

The use of p53-MDM2 inhibitors is a prospective strategy in anti-cancer therapy for tumors expressing wild type p53 protein. In this study, we have applied a simple approach of two-step synthesis of imidazoline-based alkoxyaryl compounds, which are able to efficiently inhibit p53-MDM2 protein–protein interactions, promote accumulation of p53 and p53-inducible proteins in various cancer cell lines. Compounds 2l and 2k cause significant upregulation of p53 and p53-inducible proteins in five human cancer cell lines, one of which possesses overexpression of MDM2.

The enzyme NRH:quinone oxidoreductase 2 (NQO2) plays an important role in the pathogenesis of various diseases such as neurodegenerative disorders, malaria, glaucoma, COVID-19 and cancer. NQO2 expression is known to be increased in some cancer cell lines. Since 3-arylidene-2-oxindoles are widely used in the design of new anticancer drugs, such as kinase inhibitors, it was interesting to study whether such structures have additional activity towards NQO2. Herein, we report the synthesis and study of 3-arylidene-2-oxindoles as novel NRH:quinone oxidoreductase inhibitors. It was demonstrated that oxindoles with 6-membered aryls in the arylidene moiety were obtained predominantly as E-isomers while for some 5-membered aryls, the Z-isomers prevailed. The most active compounds inhibited NQO2 with an IC50 of 0.368 µM. The presence of a double bond in the oxindoles was crucial for NQO2 inhibition activity. There was no correlation between NQO2 inhibition activity of the synthesized compounds and their cytotoxic effect on the A549 cell line.

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