Oxidative Aromatization, Cytotoxic Activity Evaluation and Conformational Study of Novel 7-aryl-10, 11-dihydro-7H-chromeno [4, 3-b]quinoline-6, 8(9H, 12H)-dione derivatives

In the present work, novel 7-aryl-10, 11-dihydro-7H-chromeno [4, 3-b]quinoline-6, 8(9H, 12H)-dione derivatives were synthesized by oxidation of 7-aryl-8, 9, 10, 12-tetrahydro-7H-chromeno[4, 3-b]quinoline-6, 8-diones in the presence of silica sulfuric acid/NaNO2 with yields of 64-74%. Cytotoxic activity of synthesized compounds was assessed on three different human cancer cell lines (K562, LS180, and MCF-7). Synthesized compounds showed moderate cytotoxic activities. The most active one apeared to be 2e, containing a methoxy group on the meta position of phenyl ring (IC50 range in different cell lines: 11.1–55.7 µM). Furthermore; comparison of the cytotoxic activity of these novel oxidized derivatives with non-oxidized counterparts revealed that oxidation of dihydropyridine ring to pyridine, improves the activity especially in LS180 cell line. Conformational analysis revealed that some conformational aspects of oxidized derivatives such as orientation of C7-aryl substitute were clearly different from non-oxidized ones.