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Updated: May 23, 2026

Functionalized Spirocyclic Heterocycle Synthesis and Cytotoxicity Assay
Published on: February 9, 2021
Structure-activity relationship in the antitumor activity of 6-, 8- or 6,8-substituted 3-benzylamino-β-carboline
Reiko Ikeda1, Takanori Kimura, Tatsuya Tsutsumi
1Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science (RIKADAI), Noda, Chiba, Japan.
Abstract:
We synthesized 47 kinds of 3-amino- or 3-benzylamino-β-carboline derivatives with a substituent on the 6-, 8-, or 6,8-carbon atoms and evaluated their antitumor activities for Hela S-3 and Sarcoma 180 cell lines using a 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay. Consequently, we succeeded to develop 3-benzylamino-8-methylamino-β-carboline (17a) and 8-methylamino-3-(3-phenoxybenzyl)amino-β-carboline (17c) with antitumor activity with IC(50) values of 0.046, 0.032 μM, respectively, against HeLa S-3 cell line, which are higher than that of previously reported 3-(3-phenoxybenzyl)amino-β-carboline (10e) of 0.074 μM. Furthermore, effects of Cl group at 6-carbon atom on the type of cell death was evaluated using 3-benzylamino-6-chloro-β-carboline (10b), 3-benzylamino-β-carboline (10d), N-(3-benzylamino)-6-chloro-9H-β-carbolin-8-yl)benzamide (14g), and N-(3-benzylamino-9H-β-carbolin-8-yl)benzamide (17b) to show no effect. Hoechst 33342 staining and DNA fragmentation assay suggested that these compounds induced cell death by apoptosis. In addition, using flow cytometry analysis, we established that the cell death pathway was through the arrest of the cell cycle in the G(2)/M phase.
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