Design, synthesis, anticancer evaluation, molecular docking and cell cycle analysis of 3-methyl-4,7-dihydropyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine derivatives as potent histone lysine demethylases (KDM) inhibitors and apoptosis inducers

[Display omitted] •The work highlights the synthesis of a series of novel pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidines.•Examination for their cytotoxic activity on breast and hela cancers cell lines.•They are potent histone lysine demethylases (KDM) inhibitors and apoptosis inducers.•Compound 7e identified as the most effective one with no cytotoxicity.•Native ligand of KDM5A (PDB-ID: 5IVE) is very closely similar in its structure to our synthesized compounds. A novel series of pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidines were synthesized and proved by their spectral and elemental analysis, some elected of the newly synthesized compounds were examined for their cytotoxic activity employing MTT assay on two cancer cell lines (Breast and Hela cancers). Compounds 5, 7e and 7i showed the higher cytotoxicity against two cancer cell lines with (IC50 = 13.91 ± 1.4 and 22.37 ± 1.8 μM/L), (IC50 = 6.56 ± 0.5 and 8.72 ± 0.9 μM/L) and (IC50 = 4.17 ± 0.2 and 5.57 ± 0.4 μM/L) for two cancer cell lines breast and hela respectively, using doxorubicin as a reference drug. The most potent cytotoxic active compounds 5, 7e and 7i presented inhibitory activity against KDM (histone lysine demethylases) with IC50 = 4.05, 1.91 and 2.31 μM, respectively. The most potent KDM inhibitor 7e (IC50 = 1.91 μM) showed to cause cell cycle arrest at G2/M phase by 4 folds than control and induce total apoptotic effect by 10 folds more than control. In silico studies performed on the more potent cytotoxic active compounds 5, 7e and 7i included lipinisk's rule of five. Moreover, molecular docking study was utilized to explore the binding mode of the most active compounds to the target enzyme (PDB-ID: 5IVE). Also, some bioinformatics studies were carried out for compounds 7e and 7i using Swiss ADME (Swiss Institute of bioinformatics 2018).