Microwave assisted synthesis of six member ring azaheterocycles and their antimycobacterial and anticancer evaluation

Abstract

We report herein a comparative study concerning the influence of microwave (MW) irradiation comparative with conventional thermal heating (TH) in the reaction of six member ring azaheterocycles (derived from phenanthroline, quinoline, isoquinoline and phthalazine) with ethyl cyanoformate, and their anticancer and antimycobacterial activity. Under MW irradiation the reactions have some undeniable advantages: the reaction times decrease dramatically (from hours to minutes), the yields are higher, the reactions became selective in some cases (4,7-phenanthrolinium and phthalazinium ylides). The decreasing of reaction time+ from hours to minutes corroborated with the fact that in majority of cases the yield are higher and the selectivity is better, allow us to say that these reactions could be considered as eco-friendly. As far for biological activity, three of the compounds exhibited a significant antitumor activity against some cancer cell lines including prostate cancer, leukemia, renal cancer, lung cancer and breast cancer. The best potency in terms of growth inhibition of tumor cells (~45%) was shown by compound 4a against renal cancer A498 and ovarian cancer SK-OV-3 cells. The tested compounds have not shown any antimycobacterial activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis.