Hybrid alpha-bromoacryloylamido chalcones. Design, synthesis and biological evaluation.

Research into the anti-tumor properties of chalcones has received significant attention over the last few years Two novel large series of alpha-bromoacryloylamido chalcones 1a-m and 2a-k containing a pair of Michael acceptors in their structures, corresponding to the alpha-bromoacryloyl moiety and the alpha,beta-unsaturated ketone system of the chalcone framework, were synthesized and evaluated for antiproliferative activity against five cancer cell lines. Such hybrid derivatives demonstrated significantly increased anti-tumor activity compared with the corresponding amino chalcones. The most promising lead molecules were 1k, 1m and 2j, which had the highest activity toward the five cell lines. Flow cytometry with K562 cells showed that the most active compounds resulted in a large proportion of the cells entering in the apoptotic sub-G0-G1 peak. Moreover, compound 1k induced apoptosis through the mitochondrial pathway and activated caspase-3.