Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of 16E-Arylidenosteroids as Cytotoxic and Anti-aromatase Agents

Abstract

Taking into consideration the structural requirements for cytotoxicity and aromatase inhibition, several new 16E-arylidenosteroidal derivatives have been prepared and evaluated for their cytotoxic and aromatase inhibitory activity. The new steroidal analogues 3, 5-8 and 11 exhibited significant cytotoxic effects when screened against three cancer cell lines, MCF-7 (breast), NCl-H460 (lung) and SF-268 central nervous system (CNS) at 100 µM and sensible cytotoxic effects subsequently in sixty cancer cell lines derived from nine cancers types (leukemia, lung, colon, CNS, melanoma, ovarian, renal, prostate and breast cancers). The imidazolyl substituted steroidal derivatives 5 and 7 exhibited strong inhibition of the aromatase enzyme with 16-[4-{3-(imidazol-1-yl)propoxy}-3-methoxybenzylidene]-5-androstene-3β,17β-diol (7) displaying 13 times more potency in comparison to aminoglutethimide.