Design, synthesis, molecular docking and biological activity evaluation of some novel indole derivatives as potent anticancer active agents and apoptosis inducers.

Reaction of 5-morphilinosulfonylisatin (1) with acetophenones (2a-e) afforded 3-hydroxy-3-substituted-2-oxoindoles 3a-e, when treated with acetic acid the expected 3-phenacylidene-2-oxoindoles 4a-d and 4-hydroxy-5'-(morpholinosulfonyl) spiro [chromene-2, 3'-indolin]-2'-one 6 were obtained. Isatin derivative (1) was stirred with cyano derivatives to produce the arylidines (7a-c), while under reflux condition, it gave pyrrolo[2,3-b]indoles (8, 9). Moreover, istain (1) reacted with pyrazolo-5-one or 3-substituted phenol in presence of malononitrile to afford spiroxindole derivatives (10a,b) and (11a,b). Also, compounds (10a,b) and (11a,b) were obtained through cyclization of (7a) with pyrazolo-5-one or 3-substituted phenol. The obtained compounds were identified by IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR and elemental analysis. Anticancer activity against three cancer cell lines (HepG-2, HCT-116 and MCF-7) were evaluated using sulforhodamine B assay method. Compounds 4b, 4c, 7a, 7c and 9 showed broad spectrum anticancer activity on the three tested cell lines with IC50 values less than 10 µM. Cell cycle analysis was performed for the most promising derivatives, compounds 4b and 7c arrested HepG-2 cells at G2-M phase, while compounds 7a and 9 accumulated cells at G0-G1 phase, all of them induced apoptosis at priG1 phase in the range of (11.32-19.17%). Additionally compounds 4b, 7a and 9 showed more potent activity against EGFR than Lapatinib, their IC50 values are from 0.019 to 0.026 µM while IC50 of Lapatinib is 0.028 µM. Molecular docking studies were conducted to investigate the binding mode, amino acid interactions and free binding energy of these potent derivatives.