Multisubstituted indole-acrylonitrile hybrids as potential cytotoxic agents

A series of multisubstituted indole-acrylonitrile hybrids were designed, synthesized and evaluated for their potential cytotoxic activities. The bio-evaluation results indicated that some of the target compounds (such as 3a, 3f, 3k, 3n) exhibited good to moderate cytotoxic effect on HepG2, BCG-823, BEL7402, and HL-7702 cell lines. Especially, the compounds 3a and 3k also exhibited high cytotoxic activities (3a, 19.38 +/- 3.38 mu M; 3k, 15.43 +/- 3.54 mu M) against the BEL-7402 cell line resistant to Taxol (>25 mu M) and 5-FU (>500 mu M), which might be developed as novel lead scaffold for potential anticancer agents. (c) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.