Coumarins are a very large family of compounds containing the unique 2H-chromen-2-one motif, as it is known according to IUPAC nomenclature. Coumarin derivatives are widely found in nature, especially in plants and are constituents of several essential oils. Up to now, thousands of coumarin derivatives have been isolated from nature or produced by chemists. More recently, the coumarin platform has been widely adopted in the design of small-molecule fluorescent chemosensors because of its excellent biocompatibility, strong and stable fluorescence emission, and good structural flexibility. This scaffold has found wide applications in the development of fluorescent chemosensors in the fields of molecular recognition, molecular imaging, bioorganic chemistry, analytical chemistry, materials chemistry, as well as in the biology and medical science communities. This review focuses on the important progress of coumarin-based small-molecule fluorescent chemosensors during the period of 2012-2018. This comprehensive and critical review may facilitate the development of more powerful fluorescent chemosensors for broad and exciting applications in the future.

Coumarin-Based Small-Molecule Fluorescent Chemosensors.

Imidazole ring is an important five-membered aromatic heterocycle widely present in natural products and synthetic molecules. The unique structural feature of imidazole ring with desirable electron-rich characteristic is beneficial for imidazole derivatives to readily bind with a variety of enzymes and receptors in biological systems through diverse weak interactions, thereby exhibiting broad bioactivities. The related research and developments of imidazole-based medicinal chemistry have become a rapidly developing and increasingly active topic. Particularly, numerous imidazole-based compounds as clinical drugs have been extensively used in the clinic to treat various types of diseases with high therapeutic potency, which have shown the enormous development value. This work systematically gives a comprehensive review in current developments of imidazole-based compounds in the whole range of medicinal chemistry as anticancer, antifungal, antibacterial, antitubercular, anti-inflammatory, antineuropathic, antihypertensive, antihistaminic, antiparasitic, antiobesity, antiviral, and other medicinal agents, together with their potential applications in diagnostics and pathology. It is hoped that this review will be helpful for new thoughts in the quest for rational designs of more active and less toxic imidazole-based medicinal drugs, as well as more effective diagnostic agents and pathologic probes.

Comprehensive Review in Current Developments of Imidazole‐Based Medicinal Chemistry

Coumarins as anticancer agents: A review on synthetic strategies, mechanism of action and SAR studies

Current developments of coumarin-based anti-cancer agents in medicinal chemistry

Coumarin heterocyclic derivatives: chemical synthesis and biological activity

Coumarin compounds represent an important type of naturally occurring and synthetic oxygen-containing heterocycles with typical benzopyrone framework. This type of special benzopyrone structure enables its derivatives readily interact with a diversity of enzymes and receptors in organisms through weak bond interactions, thereby exhibit wide potentiality as medicinal drugs. So far, some coumarin-based drugs such as anticoagulant and antineurodegenerative agents have been extensively used in clinic. Coumarin-containing supramolecular medicinal agents as a new increasing expansion of supramolecular chemistry in pharmaceutical science have also been actively investigated in recent years. Coumarin-derived artificial ion receptors, fluorescent probes and biological stains are growing quickly and have a variety of potential applications in monitoring timely enzyme activity, complex biological events as well as accurate pharmacological and pharmacokinetic properties. This review provides a systematic summary and insight of the whole range of medicinal chemistry in the current developments of coumarin compounds as anticoagulant, antineurodegenerative, anticancer, antioxidative, antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, antiparasitic, antiinflammatory and analgesic, antidiabetic, antidepressive and other bioactive agents as well as supramolecular medicinal drugs, diagnostic agents and pathologic probes, and biological stains. Some rational design strategies, structure-activity relationships and action mechanisms are discussed. The perspectives of the future development of coumarinbased medicinal chemistry are also presented.

Xin-Mei Peng

Papers

Current Developments of Coumarin Compounds in Medicinal Chemistry