Cancer is a serious disease with a complex pathogenesis, which threats human life greatly. Currently, great efforts have been put to the identification of novel anticancer targets and the discovery of anticancer drugs following the progress of chemogenomics, which will be reviewed briefly in this article. Furthermore, during the past 5 years, the global effort of sequencing human genome has provided us with an enormous number of potential targets associated with cancer therapy. As a result, the New Drug Discovery (NDD) is undergoing a transition "from gene to drug". Accordingly, the targets for anticancer drugs studies now are focused on some biological macromolecular targets associated with cancer and several interactive mechanisms involved in the growth and metastasis of cancer cells as well as tumorangiogenesis, such as Matrix Metalloproteinases (MMPs), Aminopeptidase N (APN), Tyrosine Kinase (TK), Farnesyltransferase (FTase) and cell Signal Transduction Pathway and so forth. Among these targets the MMP-2, -9 and APN are the most extensively studied enzymes in our laboratory. The peptidomimetics Matrix Metalloproteinase Inhibitors (MMPIs) and APN inhibitors (APNIs) with the molecular scaffold of pyrrolidine, 3-amino-2-hydroxy-4-phenyl butyric acid (AHPA) and glutamylide, which have been designed and synthesized in our laboratory, will be described in the review, among which the pyrrolidine scaffold is patented with the IC50 ranging from 1nM to 300nM against MMP-2, and MMP-9.

A series of novel 3-alkylthio-4-arylideneamino-5-(2-furyl)-1, 2, 4-triazole derivatives were synthesized. Their chemical structures were confirmed with elemental analysis and spectral data. Endothelin(ET) receptor competitive binding assay showed that some compounds exhibited high selective as potent ET-1 receptor antagonist.

A series of novel 2-acyloxymethyl-3,5,6-trimethylpyrazine derivatives was designed and synthesized. Most compounds were found to be 1.5-4.5-fold higher potency than tetramethylpyrazine (TMP) in stimulating the proliferation of normal vascular endothelial cells and in protecting against hyperoxic acute injury. The most active one is the 2-nicotinoyl ester 5a exhibiting the maximum proliferation rate (Pmax) of 88.57% at the concentration of 0.1 mmol L1. Structure-activity relationships of these compounds were discussed.

The synthesis and biological evaluation of caffonyl pyrrolidine derivatives as MMPs inhibitors are reported in this paper. Inhibiting activities of synthesized compounds on gelatinase (MMP-2 and -9) were tested by using succinylated gelatin as substrate. Structure－activity relationship results from these tested compounds demonstrated that longer and more flexible side chain linked to the pyrrolidine ring at C4 produced higher activity at gelatinase. Furthermore, aromatic heterocycle and sulfamide in the same position could enhance the activities. Compounds with free phenol hydroxyl group showed higher activity compared to methylated derivatives (or counterparts), which confirms the importance of phenol hydroxyl functionality in the interaction with gelatinase. The anti-metastasis model of mice bearing H22 tumor cell was used to evaluate their in vivo inhibiting activities. All tested compounds were orally administered at a dose of 50 or 100mg/kg, 6days/week for two weeks. The test results demonstrated that most of these inhibitors showed significant anti-cancer activities (inhibitory rate > 35%) and were devoid of toxic effects. Compound 29 showed the highest inhibitory rate at 69.25%, indicating that it might be a promising lead compound.

L-iso-glutamine derivatives as an APNIs was prepared by the condensation reaction of N-(3,4,5-trimethoxybenzoyl)-glutamic acid anhydride with L-amino acid methyl ester hydrochloride. The structure was confirmed by the methods of IR, 1H NMR, MS, elemental analysis, HMBC Spectrum and X-ray single crystal diffraction.