Benzofused hydroxamic acids: useful fragments for the preparation of histone deacetylase inhibitors. Part 1: hit identification.

In the search for a new class of histone deacetylase inhibitors, we prepared a series of simple benzofused hydroxamic acids to find an anchoring fragment of minimal molecular weight. These initial hits, all belonging to the benzothiophene class, showed very good ligand efficiencies. Following these findings, a classical fragment growing approach was performed to increase binding affinity and cytotoxicity.