One-pot synthesis of tricyclic dihydropyrimidine derivatives and their biological evaluation

Abstract

A series of tricyclic dihydropyrimidine derivatives were synthesized using a one-pot, three-component Traube–Schwarz reaction in the presence of catalyst Zn(ClO4)2·6H2O. All the purified compounds were evaluated for their in vitro anticancer activity against three different cancer cell lines such as prostate cancer cells (PC3), lung cancer cells (NCI-H1299) and colon cancer cells (HCT116). In vitro DNA-intercalation ability of the compounds was investigated by UV–vis absorption spectroscopy, showing the insertion of compound into the DNA base pairs and a strong interaction with the DNA double helix.