Design, synthesis, and structure–activity relationships of 1-ethylpyrazole-3-carboxamide compounds as novel hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1 inhibitors

Hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1 is well known as a promising target for cancer chemotherapy. By screening an in-house chemical library using a hypoxia-responsive luciferase reporter gene assay, we identified CLB-016 (1) containing 1-ethylpyrazole-3-carboxamide as a HIF-1 inhibitor (IC50 = 19.1 μM). In a subsequent extensive structure-activity relationship (SAR) study, we developed compound 11Ae with an IC50 value of 8.1 μM against HIF-1-driven luciferase activity. Compounds 1 and 11Ae were shown to significantly suppress the HIF-1-mediated hypoxia response, including carbonic anhydrase IX (CAIX) gene expression and migration of human sarcoma HT1080 cells. These results revealed 1-ethylpyrazole-3-carboxamide as a novel scaffold to develop promising anti-cancer drugs targeting the HIF-1 signaling pathway.

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