Synthesis, cytotoxic evaluation, docking and in silico pharmacokinetic prediction of 4-arylideneamino/cycloalkylidineamino 1, 2-naphthoquinone thiosemicarbazones.

In an attempt to develop potent anticancer agents, a series of 4-arylideneamino/cycloalkylidineamino-1, 2-naphthoquinone thiosemicarbazones were synthesized and characterized using FT-IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR spectroscopy and elemental analysis. The compounds were screened for antiproliferative activity against three human cancer cell lines (Hep-G2, MG-63 and MCF-7) using the MTT assay. Significant anticancer activity was observed for several members of the series. The compounds 4-(3, 4, 5-trimethoxybenzylidene amino) 1, 2-naphthoquinone-2-thiosemicarbazone (TS10) and 4-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxy benzylideneamino) 1, 2-naphthoquinone-2-thiosemicarbazone (TS13) were active cytotoxic agents in all three cancer cell lines, with IC50 values in the range of 3.5–6.4 µM. Further evaluation of some of these potent cytotoxic compounds demonstrated their good safety profile in a normal cell line (MCF-12A). Docking experiments showed a good correlation between the predicted glide scores and the IC50 values of these compounds. ...