Synthesis, characterization and antiproliferative activity of hexa arm star shaped thiosemicarbazones derived from cyclotriphosphazene core

Abstract

A series of novel hexa-arm star shaped thiosemicarbazones with different substitutions at <i>para</i> positions emanating from cyclotriphosphazene core were prepared with excellent yields. The structure of all the synthesized compounds was confirmed by elemental analysis and spectroscopic methods (FT-IR, ¹H, ¹³C, ³¹P NMR, 2D HSQC and ESI-MS). The compounds were evaluated for their <i>in vitro</i> antiproliferative activity against breast cancer (MCF7) and ovarian cancer (PA-1) cell lines using MTT assay. The newly synthesized compounds exhibited moderate to good activity against the tested cell lines. Among them the halo substituted benzoic thiosemicarbazones were found to be more potent towards anticancer activity.