Phenylpropiophenone derivatives as potential anticancer agents: Synthesis, biological evaluation and quantitative structure–activity relationship study

Series of twelve chalcone and propafenone derivatives has been synthesized and evaluated for anticancer activities against HeLa, Fem-X, PC-3, MCF-7, LS174 and K562 cell lines. The 2D-QSAR and 3D-QSAR studies were performed for all compounds with cytotoxic activities against each cancer cell line. Partial least squares (PLS) regression has been applied for selection of the most relevant molecular descriptors and QSAR models building. Predictive potentials of the created 2D-QSAR and 3D-QSAR models for each cell line were compared, by use of leave-one-out cross-validation and external validation, and optimal QSAR models for each cancer cell line were selected. The QSAR studies have selected the most significant molecular descriptors and pharmacophores of the chalcone and propafenone derivatives and proposed structures of novel chalcone and propafenone derivatives with enhanced anticancer activity on the HeLa, Fem-X, PC-3, MCF-7, LS174 and K562 cells.

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► Synthesis of novel phenylpropiophenone derivatives.
► Evaluation of their anticancer activities against six different cancer cell lines.
► 2D- and 3D-QSAR studies were performed for all compounds with cytotoxic activities.
► QSAR studies have selected the significant molecular descriptors and pharmacophores.