Design, synthesis and cytotoxicity evaluation of new 2-aryl-5, 6-dihydropyrrolo[2, 1-a]isoquinoline derivatives as topoisomerase inhibitors

Two set of 2-aryl-5, 6-dihydropyrrolo [2,1-a] isoquinolines were designed and synthesized to evaluate their biological activities as topoisomerase inhibitors. Cytotoxic activity of the synthesized compounds 4a-e and 7a-d was assessed against several human cancer cell lines, including MCF-7 [breast cancer cell], HepG2 [liver hepatocellular cells], A549 [adenocarcinomic human alveolar basal epithelial cells], T47D [Human ductal breast epithelial tumor cell line] and Hela [Human cervix cancer]. According to our results, HepG2 seems to be the most sensitive cell line for these compounds with mean IC[50] values ranging from 4.25 to 70.05 micro M. Our results indicated that compound 7b exhibited the best potency against the tested cell lines. These results also suggest that pyrroloisoquinoline moiety constitutes a suitable scaffold to design new anti-proliferative agents