Design and synthesis of novel coumarin-benzimidazole hybrids as human galectin-1 inhibitors.

To develop novel non-carbohydrate inhibitors of human galectin-1 (GAL-1), we have designed a series of coumarin-benzimidazole hybrids. We synthesized and characterized the coumarin-benzimidazole hybrids and further evaluated them using an GAL-1 enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and methods. Among all, the compounds and were found to be potent, with GAL-1 inhibition of 37.61 and 36.92%, respectively, at 10 μM in GAL-1-expressed cell culture supernatant of MCF-7 cells. These two compounds are feasible for fluorine-18 radiolabeling to develop GAL-1 selective PET radiotracers. Computational studies revealed strong binding interactions of GAL-1 with these novel coumarin-benzimidazole hybrids. Coumarin-benzimidazole hybrids can serve as potential leads to develop selective non-carbohydrate GAL-1 inhibitors for cancer therapy.