Design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of 4-H pyran derivatives as antimicrobial and anticancer agents

A series of pyran derivatives (5-27) were synthesized in good yields by utilizing Baylis-Hillman chemistry and were further investigated for their in vitro anticancer, antibacterial, and antifungal activities. Most of the tested compounds exhibited promising antibacterial activity as compared to the standard towards Gram-positive bacterial strains. The compounds 5-7, 11-13, and 17-19 displayed two-fold higher activity whereas compound 21 showed four-fold higher antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus MTCC 96 as compared to the standard Neomycin. Some of these compounds exhibited moderate antifungal activity against all the tested fungal strains. Two compounds 16 and 23 showed promising anticancer activity against selected four human cancer cell lines such as A549, DU145, HeLa, and MCF7.