Synthesis, characterization, anticancer and in silico studies of a pyrazole-tethered thiazolidine-2,4-dione derivative

Abstract

A new pyrazole-tethered thiazolidine-2,4-dione derivative (8) has been synthesized by the Knoevenagel condensation of 3-(4-nitrophenyl)-1-phenyl-1H-pyrazole-4-carbaldehyde (4) and 3-(2,4-dioxothiazolidin-3-yl)propanenitrile (7). The structure of the final compound was confirmed by standard spectroscopic techniques including IR spectroscopy, ¹H-NMR spectroscopy, and ESI-MS mass spectrometry. Molecular features including frontier molecular orbital (HOMO-LUMO) energies, reactivity descriptors and molecular electrostatic potential (ESP) of the title molecule were determined using density functional theory (DFT) calculation. The in vitro cytotoxicity of both the intermediate (4) and final (8) compounds were investigated against cancerous (SW-480 and MCF-7) and normal (HEK-293) cell lines by MTT assay. Compound (8) displayed higher activity than (4) with higher sensitivity against breast cancer cell line and lesser toxicity. The experimental data were further complemented by docking and absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) studies.

Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma

Keywords:

• Cytotoxicity
• DFT calculations
• in silico
• molecular hybridization
• synthesis

Acknowledgements

Authors (MMA, RS, KA and AH) gratefully acknowledges support of this work by the Department of Chemistry, University of Hail, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).