Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of novel arylpiperazine derivatives on human prostate cancer cell lines

A series of novel arylpiperazine derivatives was synthesized. The in vitro cytotoxic activities of all synthesized compounds against three human prostate cancer cell lines (PC-3, LNCaP, and DU145) were evaluated by a CCK-8 assay. Compounds 8 , 10 , 13 , 17 and 20 exhibited strong cytotoxic activities against the tested cancer cell lines (IC 50  <3 μmol/L). In addition, these compounds exhibited weak cytotoxic effects on human epithelial prostate normal cells WPMY-1. The structure–activity relationship (SAR) of these arylpiperazine derivatives was also discussed based on the obtained experimental data.