Design and Synthesis of Novel Thiosemicarbazones as Potent Anti-breast Cancer Agents

Background: Thiosemicarbazones and its derivatives received a great pharmaceutical importance due to their prominent biological activities. Methods: A series of disubstituted thiosemicarbazone derivatives (1-12) were designed and synthesized as pure compounds in good yield. All the synthesized compounds were analyzed by spectral data. The anticancer activity of all the compounds was performed against breast cancer MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cell lines. Results: Most of the compounds showed activity against breast cancer MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cell lines with (IC50 = 12.25 µM ‒ 185.35 µM) and (IC50 = 12.97 µM ‒ 107.33 µM), respectively. Compound 9 presented (IC50 = 12.76 µM and 12.97 µM) against MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cell lines, respectively. Conclusion: Compound 9, was found to exhibit significant anti-breast cancer activity. This compound was further evaluated for side population percent inhibition assay on the breast cancer cell line MCF-7 at 5 and 10 µM concentration. It showed superiority to block side population by more than 80% at 5 μM concentration compared to the reference drug verapamil.