Synthesis, biological evaluation and virtual screening of some acridone derivatives as potential anticancer agents

Eleven novel acridone derivatives were synthesized and evaluated for their anticancer activity against 60 human cancer cell lines. Five compounds 8b, 8d, 8g, 8h, and 8k displayed very good in vitro antiproliferative activities well over 95% of the panels. The most active compound is 8k (5, 7-dibromo-3-phenyl-3,4-dihydroacridin-1 (2H)-one). In addition, 8k was the most sensitive agent in all 9 panels starting with prostate (0.075 µm), leukemia (0.116 µm), non-small cell lung cancer (0.164 µm), colon cancer (0.193 µm), CNS cancer (0.264 µm), melanoma (0.317 µm), renal cancer (0.403 µm), ovarian cancer (0.410 µm), and breast cancer (0.608 µm). Virtual screening studies also revealed that nine of the eleven compounds formed good binding interaction with the active site ATPase domain of human topoisomerase IIα (PDB: 1zxm). All nine derivatives exhibited binding affinities that ranged in values from -8.5 to -7.9 kcal/mol, indicating that they could be catalytic inhibitors of the nuclear enzyme, topoisomerase.