Imidazole based compunds: Synethesis and in vitro anticancer screening

Abstract

Imidazole is an important five-membered aromatic heterocycle widely present in natural products and synthetic molecules. The unique structural feature of imidazole ring with desirable electron rich characteristic is beneficial for imidazole derivatives to readily bind with a variety of enzymes and receptors in biological systems through diverse weak interactions, thereby exhibiting broad bioactivities. Numerous imidazole-based compounds are in being used extensively in the clinics to treat various types of diseases. We have synthesized, designed and evaluated imidazole-based compounds for anti-proliferative activity against A-549 and Hep-G2 human cancer cell lines. Further the free radical scavenging activity of the selected compounds was performed in order to observe their antioxidant potential (if any). The combined results have shown advent of their first in vitro bioactivity as anticancer and antioxidant compounds and revealed their medicinal potential. The synthetics offer the scope for generation of a library of compounds and their evaluation against a panel of cancer cell lines, studies on structure activity relationship, tracing their molecular mechanism(s) in addition to their development at preclinical level in future.