Efficient synthesis of meso‐substituted porphyrins and molecular docking as potential new antioxidant and cytotoxicity agents

Abstract An improved methodology is reported for the synthesis of new series of mesotetrakis[aryl]‐21H,23H‐porphyrin derivatives 2a–h and was considered as a model to study their antioxidant and cytotoxic activities. The structures of the novel compounds were determined in 1H and 13C NMR, UV‐Vis, and elemental analyses. Among the derivatives, compounds 2c, 2d, and 2h showed strongest radical‐scavenging activity. Moreover, according to our results, compounds 2c, 2d, 2g, and 2h have very strong activity against the HepG2 hepatoma cell line, with IC50 values from 9 to 25 μg/mL. Molecular docking was performed to investigate the binding between the most active porphyrin derivatives 2c, 2d, 2g, 2h and the two molecular targets Bcl‐2 and caspase‐3. Compounds 2c and 2d seem to have better affinities to both proteins than 2g and 2h.