The synthesis and biological evaluation of unsymmetrical 2,2-di(1H-indol-3-yl)-N-phenylacetamide derivatives

Abstract A mild and highly efficient method has been developed for the synthesis of unsymmetrical 2,2-di(1H-indol-3-yl)-N-phenylacetamide derivatives by the regioselective Friedel–Crafts alkylation of 2-hydroxy-2-(1H-indol-3-yl)-N-phenylacetamide derivatives with various indoles catalyzed by AlCl3 at room temperature in a short reaction time in high yields (up to 96%). All these compounds were screened for their antiproliferative activity against human colorectal carcinoma HCT116 cell line. The preliminary biological study showed that some of them exhibited moderate to good antiproliferative activity in vitro. Especially, compound 3e exerted the most powerful antiproliferative activity even better than the positive control MDM-2/p53 antagonist Nutlin-3a.