Asynthesis, Crystal Structures and in Vitro Anticancer Studies of New Thiosemicarbazone Derivatives

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

Abstract

Thiosemicarbazones are an important class of compounds having significant biological properties. These compounds are used as stable ligands for the synthesis of coordination compounds of biological worth. The current study describes syntheses of four new N(3)-ethyl thiosemicarbazone derivatives and their in vitro anticancer testing. The purpose of the study was to observe the effect of various subtitutions at the aromatic ring against the growth of cancerous cell. The synthesized compounds were characterized by NMR (¹H and ¹³C) spectroscopy and the molecular structures of each of the compounds were determined using single crystal X-ray crystallographic technique. Interestingly, compound 4 appeared to have two crystallographically different units (A and B), having slightly different bond lengths and angles compared to each other. All the compounds were tested for their in vitro anticancer properties against human colon cancer (HCT 116) and breast cancer (MCF-7) cell lines. The compounds (1 and 2), having halide (Cl and Br) substitutions, showed significant activity compared to those having ethoxy and allyl substitutions (3 and 4), indicating the possible involvement of halides against cancerous cells.

Keywords:

• Thiosemicarbazones
• crystal structures
• cytotoxicity
• MCF-7
• HCT 116
• SAR