Novel N-Acyl Hydrazone Compounds as Promising Anticancer Agents: Synthesis and Molecular Docking Studies

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High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide In this study, a new series of N -acyl hydrazones 7a-e, 8a-e, and 9a-e, starting from methyl δ-oxo pentanoate with different substituted groups 1a-e, were synthesized as anticancer agents. The structures of obtained target molecules were identified by spectrometric analysis methods (FT-IR, 11 H NMR, 13 C NMR, and LC–MS). The antiproliferative activity of the novel N -acyl hydrazones was evaluated on the breast (MCF-7) and prostate (PC-3) cancer cell lines by an MTT assay. Additionally, breast epithelial cells (ME-16C) were used as reference normal cells. All newly synthesized compounds 7a-e, 8a-e, and 9a-e exhibited selective antiproliferative activity with high toxicity to both cancer cells simultaneously without any toxicity to normal cells. Among these novel N -acyl hydrazones, 7a-e showed the most potent anticancer activities with IC 50 values at 7.52 ± 0.32–25.41 ± 0.82 and 10.19 ± 0.52–57.33 ± 0.92 μM against MCF-7 and PC-3 cells, respectively. Also, molecular docking studies were applied to comprehend potential molecular interactions between compounds and target proteins. It was seen that the docking calculations and the experimental data are in good agreement.