The Properties and the Use of Substituted Benzofuroxans in Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry: A Comprehensive Review

Since the synthesis of 4,6-dinitrobenzofuroxan in 1899 by Drost, benzofuroxans have attracted particular attention. This peculiar series of compounds exhibit a broad spectrum of biological activity including antibacterial, antifungal, antileukemic, acaricide and immunodepressive properties. These works embrace a period of more than 50 years since the pioneering paper of Gosh and Whitehouse and papers in this major field of the heterocyclic chemistry are still published in 2013. The review has been built in two independent parts. The first one is directly dedicated to the structure of substituted benzofuroxans and will show many medicinal applications of these compounds such as nitric oxide-releasing abilities, induction of oxidative stress, potent anti-cancer agents, anti-chagas agent, target for antiamoebic agent, Ca2+ channel blockers or cytotoxic, mutagenic and genotoxic agent… The second part of this review will be in close connection with the use of benzofuroxans as synthetic precursors in the preparation of new biological compounds such as quinoxaline dioxide, benzimidazole and phenazine derivatives. The interaction of substituted benzofuroxans with electron rich heterocycles or carbanions is the key step in the synthesis of these new biological active compounds. These derivatives can be used as cytotoxic drugs, antimycobacterial agent and display anti-malarial, antileishmanial and antituberculosis activity. The nature of the substituent linked to the carbocyclic ring of benzofuroxan is of primary importance to understand the medicinal properties of this family of compounds. For example, when benzofuroxans are substituted by electron-releasing substituents, the chemical reactivity is transferred from the carbocyclic ring to the furoxan ring.