Abstract:

During the course of our studies aiming the discovery of new antineoplasic and antiparasitary compounds, we recently described the synthesis of the aza-dehydropterocarpan 1a (Figure 1). In order to know more about the structural features required for the observed activities of 1a, we report in this work the synthesis of compounds 1b-d and 2a-c. Our first goal was to modify the substituent at the nitrogen atom in the C-ring (1b-c) to see if this moiety is part of the pharmacophore. In analogues 2a-b, halogen atoms at D-ring were introduced to target diverse set of relevant medicinal proteins due to halogen bond. Trying to understand more about the mechanism of the antineoplasic activity, cell death was evaluated by flow cytometry.