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Updated: Oct 14, 2025
Anticancer Metal Complexes: Synthesis and Cytotoxicity Evaluation by the MTT Assay
Published on: November 10, 2013
In vitro evaluation of the anticancer activity of barbituric/thiobarbituric acid-based chromene derivatives
Seyyed Abolghasem Ghadami1, Leila Hosseinzadeh2, Ehsan Eskandari3
1Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran.
Background:
Cancer is one of the most important reasons for mortality worldwide. Several synthetic products have shown valuable efficiency as an anticancer medicines. Chromene derivatives have long been used as the promising compounds which are potent in inhibition of the growth of tumors.
Methods And Results:
In this study, we investigate an anticancer activity of barbituric/thiobarbituric acid-based chromene derivates. For this purpose, viability, antioxidant and apoptotic assays were conducted using three different cancer cell lines (A2780, MCF7, and A549). In most cases, the antiproliferative activity of barbituric acid-based derivatives was higher than that of thiobarbituric acid-based compounds. Among 14 compounds, compound 4g was the most potent one, which showed the highest effect on cells by increasing the accumulation of ROS (up to 540% increase), increasing the level of caspase-3 and caspase-9 (~ 35% increase), and decreasing the mitochondrial membrane potential (2.5 folds reduction). To characterize the type of cell death involved into our experiment Annexin V/PI double staining of compound 4g was performed. The results showed that the number of late apoptotic and/or necrotic cells (Ann V + /PI +) increased fourfold upon treatment with IC50 concentration of 4g.
Conclusions:
Overall, the anti-proliferative activity of barbituric acid-based derivatives was higher than that of thiobarbituric acid compounds, and compound 4g can be introduced as a potential candidate to prevent various cancers.
