Indoles - A promising scaffold for drug development

Generally, heterocycles occupy a prominent place in chemistry due to their wide range of applications in the fields of drug design, photochemistry, agrochemicals, dyes and so on. Among them, indole scaffolds have been found in most of the important synthetic drug molecules and paved a faithful way to develop effective targets. Privileged structures bind to multiple receptors with high affinity, thus aiding the development of novel biologically active compounds. Among the indole class of compounds, 2-arylindoles appear to be a most promising lead for drug development. The derivatives of 2-arylindoles exhibits antibacterial, anticancer, anti-oxidants, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, antiviral, antiproliferative, antituberculosis activity, etc. This article would provide a clear knowledge on the wide-ranging biological activities of 2-arylindoles over the past two decades, which would be beneficial for the designing of more potent drug targets in order to compete with the existing drugs. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.