Microwave irradiated synthesis of some substituted imidazole derivatives as potential antibacterial and anticancer agents

The microwave assisted and solvent free synthesis of title compounds is described in this protocol. Ten new aryl imidazoles, which are incorporated with the chemotherapeutic pharmacophores, have been synthesized by adopting one pot multicomponent reaction. First, primary aromatic or heteryl amine has been condensed with aryl or heteryl aldehydes to afford corresponding Schiff base. The Schiff base on treatment with NH4OAc and benzil using silica gel as the solid support yields the corresponding aryl imidazoles. In this paper, a comparative study between the microwave method and conventional method is described. The synthesized compounds have been characterized by spectral and elemental analysis. The synthesized compounds have been evaluated for their antibacterial and short-term anticancer activity. All the synthesized substituted imidazoles have shown good antibacterial activity against gram negative bacterial strains Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli. The synthesized imidazole derivatives possess significant cytotoxic activity against Ehrlich’s Ascites Carcinoma (EAC) cell lines and Dalton’s Lymphoma Ascites (DLA) cell lines.