Wang, Le et al. published their research in Journal of Medicinal Chemistry in 2004 | CAS: 60710-80-7

3-Amino-4-methylbenzonitrile (cas: 60710-80-7) belongs to nitriles. Nitrile function is a very important functional group because it can be manipulated to other functional groups such as carboxylic acid by hydrolysis or amine by reduction, respectively. Industrially, the main methods for producing nitriles are ammoxidation and hydrocyanation. Both routes are green in the sense that they do not generate stoichiometric amounts of salts.Formula: C8H8N2

Design, Synthesis, and Biological Activity of 4-[(4-Cyano-2-arylbenzyloxy)-(3-methyl-3H-imidazol-4-yl)methyl]benzonitriles as Potent and Selective Farnesyltransferase(FTase) Inhibitors was written by Wang, Le;Wang, Gary T.;Wang, Xilu;Tong, Yunsong;Sullivan, Gerry;Park, David;Leonard, Nicholas M.;Li, Qun;Cohen, Jerry;Gu, Wen-Zhen;Zhang, Haiying;Bauch, Joy L.;Jakob, Clarissa G.;Hutchins, Charles W.;Stoll, Vincent S.;Marsh, Kennan;Rosenberg, Saul H.;Sham, Hing L.;Lin, Nan-Horng. And the article was included in Journal of Medicinal Chemistry in 2004.Formula: C8H8N2 This article mentions the following:

A novel series of 4-[(4-cyano-2-arylbenzyloxy)-(3-methyl-3H-imidazol-4-yl)methyl]benzonitriles have been synthesized as selective farnesyltransferase inhibitors using a structure-based design. X-ray cocrystal structures of compound 6-[[(1R)-(4-cyanophenyl)(1-methyl-1H-imidazol-5-yl)methoxy]methyl]-3′-methoxy[1,1′-biphenyl]-3-carbonitrile-FTase-HFP and A313326-FTase-HFP confirmed our initial design. The decreased interaction between the aryl groups and Ser 48 in GGTase-I binding site could be one possible reason to explain the improved selectivity for this new series of FTase inhibitors. Medicinal chem. efforts led to the discovery of 3-cyano-6-[[(4-cyanophenyl)(1-methyl-1H-imidazol-5-yl)methoxy]methyl]-N-phenylbenzamide (I) with potent cellular activity (EC50 = 3.5 nM) and outstanding pharmacokinetic profiles in dog (96% bioavailable, 18.4 h oral t1/2, and 0.19 L/(h·kg) plasma clearance). In the experiment, the researchers used many compounds, for example, 3-Amino-4-methylbenzonitrile (cas: 60710-80-7Formula: C8H8N2).

3-Amino-4-methylbenzonitrile (cas: 60710-80-7) belongs to nitriles. Nitrile function is a very important functional group because it can be manipulated to other functional groups such as carboxylic acid by hydrolysis or amine by reduction, respectively. Industrially, the main methods for producing nitriles are ammoxidation and hydrocyanation. Both routes are green in the sense that they do not generate stoichiometric amounts of salts.Formula: C8H8N2

Referemce:
Nitrile – Wikipedia,
Nitriles – Chemistry LibreTexts