Green synthesis and biological evaluation of steroidal 2H-pyrans as anticancer and antioxidant agents

In this study, we describe a green and simple procedure for the synthesis of steroidal 2H-pyrans 4–6 using chitosan as an eco-friendly heterogeneous catalyst. The synthesized compounds were characterized by IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, MS and analytical data. These compounds were tested in vitro against two cancer cell lines [HeLa (cervical) and Jurkat (leukemia)] and one normal cell line (PBMC). The compounds exhibited moderate to good activity against the two human cancer cell lines and were less toxic against the non-cancer cell line. In addition, the synthesized compounds were tested for their in vitro antioxidant activity by 1,1-diphenylpicrylhydrazyl method in which compounds 4 and 6 exhibited good antioxidant activity. This study provided a new molecular scaffold for the further development of anticancer as well as antioxidant agents.