Gallic acid-based indanone derivatives as anticancer agents

Gallic acid-based indanone derivatives have been synthesised. Some of the indanones showed very good anticancer activity in MTT assay. Compounds 10, 11, 12 and 14 possessed potent anticancer activity against various human cancer cell lines. The most potent indanone (10, IC50 = 2.2 mu M), against MCF-7, that is, hormone-dependent breast cancer cell line, showed no toxicity to human erythrocytes even at higher concentrations (100 mu g/ml, 258 mu M). While, indanones 11, 12 and 14 showed toxicities to erythrocytes at higher concentrations. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.