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

In this study, anew series of N-acylhydrazones 7a-e, 8a-e, and 9a-e, starting frommethyl delta-oxo pentanoate with different substituted groups 1a-e, were synthesized as anticancer agents. The structuresof obtained target molecules were identified by spectrometric analysismethods (FT-IR, H-11 NMR, C-13 NMR, and LC-MS).The antiproliferative activity of the novel N-acylhydrazones was evaluated on the breast (MCF-7) and prostate (PC-3)cancer cell lines by an MTT assay. Additionally, breast epithelialcells (ME-16C) were used as reference normal cells. All newly synthesizedcompounds 7a-e, 8a-e, and 9a-e exhibited selective antiproliferative activity with high toxicityto both cancer cells simultaneously without any toxicity to normalcells. Among these novel N-acyl hydrazones, 7a-e showed the most potent anticancer activities with IC50 values at 7.52 +/- 0.32-25.41 +/- 0.82 and10.19 +/- 0.52-57.33 +/- 0.92 mu M against MCF-7and PC-3 cells, respectively. Also, molecular docking studies wereapplied to comprehend potential molecular interactions between compoundsand target proteins. It was seen that the docking calculations andthe experimental data are in good agreement.