QSAR-based rational discovery of novel substituted-4′-iminospiro[indoline-3,3′-[1,2,5]thiadiazolidinyl]-2-one 1′,1′-dioxide with potent in vitro anticancer activity

Recent studies have suggested that aldose reductase inhibition preferentially inhibits the growth of cancer cells. However, the investigations of this issue are not many. Novel nine substituted- 4′-iminospiro[indoline-3,3′-[1,2,5] thiadiazolidinyl]-2-one 1′,1′-dioxide derivatives were designed by both isosteric replacement of the imidazolidine-2,5-dione moiety in spirohydantoin scaffold and conformational rigidification approaches. A QSAR with high predictive power (r 2 = 0.99) was created from a series of potent aldose reductase inhibitors and was used to predict the activity of our new compounds. Compound 5 showed the best docking score (− 33.24 kcal/mol) with the least RMSD value (