2-Arylbenzothiazole as a privileged scaffold in drug discovery.

Substituted 2-arylbenzothiazoles have emerged in recent years as an important pharmacophore in a number of diagnostic and therapeutic settings. Attractive features of drug candidates based on this benzothiazole scaffold include their synthetic accessibility, and synthetic approaches to 2-arylbenzothiazole-based compounds will be reviewed here. Examples of 2-arylbenzothiazoles endowed with diagnostic/therapeutic activity include the 2-(4-aminophenyl)benzothiazole series, which has a remarkable activity profile in both the potential non-invasive diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and as antitumour agents.