Synthesis and biological evaluation of some new 2-pyrazolines bearing benzene sulfonamide moiety as potential anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer agents.

Eight novel 2-pyrazolines (2a-h) were synthesized by the reaction of appropriate chalcones/flavanones with 4-hydrazinonbenzenesulfonamide hydrochloride and tested for anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer activities. Two compounds 2c and 2e showed good anti-inflammatory activity which is comparable to the reference drug celecoxib in carrageenan-induced rat paw edema bioassay and found safe from the point of view of ulcer induction. Compounds 2c and 2e showed very mild inhibition against the enzymatic activity of ovine COX-1 and COX-2 (in vitro). The compounds 2c and 2f exhibited considerable antitumor activity against tested 60 human tumor cell lines. Specifically, compound 2f exhibited promising anti-proliferative activity with GI(50) values less than 2 µM particularly against MOLT-4 (1.94), SR (1.28) in leukemia cancer, EKVX (1.88) in non small cell lung cancer, COLO 205 (1.69) in colon cancer.