Synthesis, biological evaluation and molecular docking studies of novel 1,2,3-triazole tethered chalcone hybrids as potential anticancer agents

As a part of our ongoing effort in a way to develop potential anti-cancer agents, a novel series of nine 1,2,3-triazole tethered chalcone hybrids were synthesized in good yields from suitable reaction procedures and were further characterized by various analytical techniques. All the newly synthesized compounds were screened for their potent in-vitro cytotoxicity against human breast cancer (MCF-7),cervical cancer (HeLa) and MDA-MB-231 cell lines. Further the selectivity index(SI) of potent compounds with non-tumorigenic MCF-10a epithelial cells enables the target molecule less toxic effect on normal cells. Compounds with different minimal concentration ranging from 0.625 μM to 10 μM respectively displayed potent cytotoxic evaluations towards cancer cells by MTT assay in terms of half-maximal inhibitory concentration of compound required to inhibit cell viability. Most of the screened derivatives (7a-i) demonstrated moderate to promising cytotoxic activity. Some of the derivatives, predominantly like 7d, 7g and 7i are the major compounds which shown promising cytotoxic activity with lower IC50 value compared to standard drug cisplatin. In addition, to these in vitro compound activity relationships we further supported the compounds as potent anticancer agents with less toxicity by in-silico molecular docking studies and ADME properties with maximum dock scores. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.