NAPHTHOIMIDAZOLES AND NAPHTHOXAZOLES - PROMISING COMPONENTS OF THERANOSTIC SYSTEMS

Theranostic can be used to define therapeutic and imaging agents in a system. It is consisting of four components: signal emitter, therapeutic agent, targeting ligand and carrier. Naphthoimidazole and naphthoxazole are extended aromatic systems, and can participate in theranostic systems (TS) acting as a therapeutic agent and/or a signal emitter considering of their broad spectrum of biological activities and their optical properties of fluorescence emission. This systematic review investigated the applicability of the naphthoimidazole and naphthoxazole nuclei as constituents of TS and shows the synthesis methodologies described in the articles selected. Among the scientific articles suitable for the criteria of the systematic review, more than 35% described the evaluation of biological activities, mainly the naphthoimidazole derivatives, and approximately 18% explored the fluorescence emission of naphthoxazole derivatives and their applicability in biological systems. Among the selected articles 53% and 44% show synthetic routes for the preparation of naphthoxazoles and naphthoimidazoles, respectively. It was observed that both nuclei can be synthesized from various reagents, such as naphthoquinones, naphthols, naphthoic acids, aminonaphthoquinones and cyanophthalides. The results of this study suggests that naphthoimidazole and naphthoxazole derivatives are promising for application as components of TS, and there are various synthetic possibilities for obtaining these heterocycles.