Concise total synthesis of water soluble metatacarboline A, C, D, E and F and its anticancer activity

•Concise and operationally simple first total synthesis.•All the aspects of data of natural products are reported for the first time.•All natural products have good water solubility.•Anticancer activity of natural products has been reported against Glioma cell line.•Among all natural products, Mc D and Mc F have shown anticancer activity.

The simple, concise, protecting group free and first total synthesis of Metatacarboline alkaloids (abbreviated as Mc) Mc A, C, D, E and F are reported. The core structure of metatacarboline alkaloids has been constructed by the classical Wittig reaction as key step from easily accessible starting materials with 40–75% overall yields. These synthesized compounds have been subjected to evaluate for their anticancer activity using C6 glioma cell lines. Mc D and Mc F showed significant antiproliferative activity, which was confirmed by MTT and Clonogenic assay. FACS analysis showed that Mc D and Mc F arrested the cell cycle at sub G0/G1 and G2/M phase of cell cycle respectively. Further, Western blot analysis and immunohistochemistry of Mc D treated cells revealed activation of caspase dependent downstream signaling which led to apoptosis.

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