Synthesis, structural, solubility and anticancer activity studies of salts using nucleobases and sulfonic acids coformer

The reactions of natural and unnatural nucleobases (cytosine (Cyt), adenine (Ade), 5-aminouracil (AU) and caffeine (Caff)) with sulfonic acids coformer (1,5-naphthalenedisulfonic acid, NDSA; 5-sulfosalicylic acid, SSA) resulted in the formation of salts viz. [NDSA.Cyt] (1), [NDSA.Ade] (2), [NDSA.AU] (3), [NDSA.Caff] (4), [SSA.Cyt] (5), [SSA.Ade] (6), [SSA.AU] (7), and [SSA.Caff] (8). The structural analysis revealed that salts 1, 4, 6 and 7 have intermolecular interactions between adjacent nucleobases which form two different homodimer shown in R-2(2) (8) motif and assembled via complementary N-H center dot center dot center dot O and N-H center dot center dot center dot N interactions. However, in all other salts an intermediate supramolecular synthon pattern was observed between nucleobases and sulfonic acids. The lattice energy was also calculated by DFF to investigate whether salts were thermodynamically more stable than its coformer. The same was further confirmed by differential scanning calorimetry-thermogravimetric (DSC-TG) analysis. The anticancer activity study of individual nucleobases and their NDSA salts were also performed on human breast (MCF-7) and lung (A 549) cancer cell. The salts formation of nucleobases with sulfonic acids improved their solubility, thereby demonstrating up to 8-fold increase in solubility of nucleobases. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.