“…7,8 Starting from the simple benzoylpyruvic acid 1 (BPA, Figure 1a In the course of our drug discovery program focused on developing original IN inhibitors, 10-15 a series of polycyclic templates carrying a novel potential chelating pharmacophore has been designed and synthesized. Our attention was addressed to the furo [2,3-h]cinnolin-3(2H)-one scaffold I (Figure 2), as analogue of the previoulsy reported 6-aryl-5-methyl-4,5-dihydro-3-(2H)pyridazinones, 4,4a-dihydro-5H-indeno [1,2-c]pyridazinones II, III, [16][17][18][19] and more strictly to 5,6-dihydrobenzo[h]-, 5,6-dihydrothieno [2,3(3,2)-h]cinnolin-3(2H)-ones IV, V. [20][21][22] These condensed ring systems demonstrated a versatile platform to incorporate a pyridazinone ring, which has shown several pharmaceutical properties. 23 In this context, the N-NH-CO-C-R (R = OH, NH2) motif could be considered as a potential chelating fragment, eventually suitable of bioisosteric replacement of the β-diketo enol pharmacophore.…”