Synthesis and biological evaluation of novel benzoxazinic analogues of ellipticine

Original 1,4-benzoxazine analogues of ellipticine were prepared using a general synthetic route that relied on an anionic ring annulation as the key transformation. The interest of this approach lies on the possibility of an easy entrance to a wide range of derivatives from the phenol intermediate. In addition, this synthetic strategy offers a smart access to diverse structurally related heteroaryl annulated carbazole analogues of ellipticine just by replacing the starting heterocyclic core. Antiproliferative activities of newly synthesized derivatives were evaluated toward tumor cell lines. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.