Design, synthesis and in vitro antitumor evaluation of novel diaryl urea derivatives bearing sulfonamide moiety

A novel series of diaryl urea derivatives bearing sulfonamide moiety have been designed and synthesized. Their in vitro antitumor effect against human cancer cell lines MX-1, A375, HepG2, Ketr3 and HT-29 was screened and evaluated by the standard MTT assay with sorafenib as the positive control. Some of the compounds showed significant inhibitory activity against multiple cell lines compared to sorafenib. In particular, 2,6-dimethyl-4-{6-[3-(4-chloro-3-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl)urea]naphthalen-2-yl}sulfonyl morpholine (10d) was found to be the most potent against A375, HepG2 and Ketr3 with IC₅₀ values of 0.65–0.97 μmol/L, which were 5–20-fold more potent than sorafenib. Compound 10d emerged as a valuable lead for further optimization.