Synthesis and screening of ursolic acid-benzylidine derivatives as potential anti-cancer agents

•In the present study a library of ursolic acid-benzylidine derivatives have been designed and synthesized using Claisen Schmidt condensation of ursolic acid with various aromatic aldehydes in an attempt to develop potent antitumor agents.•Among the synthesized compounds compound 3b, the most active derivative was subjected to mechanistic studies to understand the underlying mechanism.•The results revealed that compound 3b induced apoptosis in HCT-116 cell lines, arrest cell cycle in the G1 phase, caused accumulation of cytochrome c in the cytosol and increased the expression levels of caspase-9 and caspase-3 proteins.

Ursolic acid present abundantly in plant kingdom is a well-known compound with various promising biological activities including, anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, antiallergic and anti-HIV properties. Herein, a library of ursolic acid-benzylidine derivatives have been designed and synthesized using Claisen Schmidt condensation of ursolic acid with various aromatic aldehydes in an attempt to develop potent antitumor agents. The compounds were evaluated against a panel of four human carcinoma cell lines including, A-549 (lung), MCF-7 (breast), HCT-116 (colon), THP-1 (leukemia) and a normal human epithelial cell line (FR-2). The results from MTT assay revealed that all the compounds displayed high level of antitumor activities compared with the triazole analogs (previously reported) and the parent ursolic acid. However, compound 3b, the most active derivative was subjected to mechanistic studies to understand the underlying mechanism. The results revealed that compound 3b induced apoptosis in HCT-116 cell lines, arrest cell cycle in the G1 phase, caused accumulation of cytochrome c in the cytosol and increased the expression levels of caspase-9 and caspase-3 proteins. Therefore, compound 3b induces apoptosis in HCT-116 cells through mitochondrial pathway.

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