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Bassem Sadek,1 Annemarie Schreeb,2 Johannes Stephan Schwed,2,3 Lilia Weizel,2 Holger Stark3 1Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates; 2Biocenter, Institute of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Johann-Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany; 3Institute of Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry, Heinrich Heine University, Duesseldorf, Germany Abstract: A small series of compounds containing derivatives of 2,4-diamino- and 2,4,6-triaminopyrimidine (compounds 2–7) was synthesized and tested for binding affinity to human histamine H3 receptors (hH3Rs) stably expressed in HEK-293 cells and human H4Rs (hH4Rs) co-expressed with Gαi2 and Gβ1γ2 subunits in Sf9 cells. Working in part from the lead compound 6-(4-methylpiperazin-1-yl)-N4-(3-(piperidin-1-yl)propyl)pyrimidine-2,4-diamine (compound 1) with unsatisfactory affinity and selectivity to hH3Rs, our structure-activity relationship studies revealed that replacement of 4-methylpiperazino by N-benzylamine and substitution of an amine group at the 2-position of the 2-aminopyrimidine core structure with 3-piperidinopropoxyphenyl moiety as an hH3R pharmacophore resulted in N4-benzyl-N2-(4-(3-(piperidin-1-yl)propoxy)phenyl)pyrimidine-2,4-diamine (compound 5) with high hH3R affinity (ki =4.49±1.25 nM) and H3R receptor subtype selectivity of more than 6,500×. Moreover, initial metric analyses were conducted based on their target-oriented drug-likeness for predictively quantifying lipophilicity, ligand efficiency, lipophilicity-dependent ligand efficiency, molecular size-independent efficiency, and topological molecular polar surface. As to the development of potential H3R ligands, results showed that integration of the hH3R pharmacophore in hH4R-affine structural scaffolds resulted in compounds with high hH3R affinity (4.5–650 nM), moderate to low hH4R affinity (4,500–30,000 nM), receptor subtype selectivity (ratio hH4R/hH3R; 8–6,500), and promising calculated drug-likeness properties. Keywords: histamine, H3 receptors, H4 receptors, drug-likeness

The involvement of histamine and H4 receptor (H4 R) in cancer has been investigated recently using the H4 R agonists and antagonists. The scope of the research project was synthesis and exploration of the consequences of a group of compounds with histamine H4 receptor (H4 R) affinity on the promoter of PTEN gene encoding the antitumor PTEN protein. The series of novel compounds based either on H4 R antagonists JNJ7777120 structure or 1,3,5-triazine scaffold were synthesized, evaluated for histamine H4 R affinity and used in this study. Compounds 5 and 7 belonging to the group of JNJ7777120 analogues showed the highest interaction with the promoter of PTEN gene and weak affinity against H4 R with Ki value >100 μm. These compounds showed no significant effect on neuroblastoma IMR-32 cells viability indicating no correlation between PTEN gene promoter affinity and antitumor activity. Compound 6, another JNJ7777120 analogue, showed the highest effect on IMR-32 viability with calculated IC50 = 23.27 μm. The 1,3,5-triazine derivatives exhibited generally low or medium interaction with PTEN gene promoter. However, the 1,3,5-triazine derivative 11 with the para-bromo substituent showed the highest affinity against H4 R with Ki value of 520 nm and may be considered as a new lead structure.