Naphthoflavones as antiproliferative agents: Design, synthesis and biological evaluation

The present study involves the design and synthesis of naphthoflavones as antiproliferative agents. The strategy presents naphthoflavones as hybrids of naphthyl based chalcones and flavones. A panel of human cancer cell lines were employed for the cytotoxicity studies. DK-13 exhibited significant cytoxicity against MiaPaCa-2 cell lines with IC50 value of 1.93 μM and 5.63 μM against MCF-7 cell lines. The compound DK-13 was found to induce apoptosis evidenced through phase contrast microscopy, DAPI staining, and mitochondrial membrane potential loss. The cell phase distribution studies indicated an increase from 11.26% (control sample) to 55.19% (sample treated with 20 μM compound DK-13) in the apoptotic population.