Anti-Proliferative, Anti-EGFR and In Silico Studies of a Series of New Imidazole Tethered 1,2,4-Oxadiazoles

Herein, we prepared some new imidazole-1,2,4-oxadiazole hybrids (6a-6o) and investigated their antiproliferative potential on three human cancer cell lines (HepG2, A549 and MCF-7) using Erlotinib as standard drug. In common, most of the compounds showed better potential on MCF-7 in comparison to HepG2 and A549. Out of all, compound 6o had greater activity on MCF-7, while, it, had most promising activity on HEPG2 and A549. Compounds 6f, 6j and 6l also exhibited significant activity on MCF-7. As well, in vitro anti-EGFR evaluation of most active compounds 6f, 6j, 6l, and 6o revealed that compound 6o displayed most promising activity as compared to Erlotinib. Molecular docking studies revealed the possible binding interactions of derivatives 6f, 6j, 6l, and 6o with EGFR (PDB ID-4HJO). Finally, compounds 6f, 6j, 6l, and 6o are possessing 'druglikeness' with CLogP values ranging from 1.86 to 3.13.