Pro-apoptotic activities of novel synthetic quinones in human cancer cell lines

Four novel quinonoid compounds are evaluated for their apoptotic potential against three cancer cell lines, i.e. MCF-7, HeLa and MG-63. APOPercentage™ assay was used for the screening of the compounds and it was established that the apoptotic potential of these compounds is cell line specific. The compound 2-(1′,4′-benzoquinon-2′-yl)-5-hydroxy-7-methyl-1,4-naphthoquinone (S4) was found to be most active, which has a potential to kill ∼99% of HeLa cancer cells in vitro after 72 h at a concentration of 10 μM. The compound’s ability to induce specific markers of apoptosis in HeLa cells is further confirmed by DNA fragmentation and cell cycle assays.