Ashraf Mashrai, Ayaz Mahmood Dar, Shafia Mir, Himanshu Gupta and Shamsuzzaman
In an attempt to find a new class of cytotoxic agents, a series of fused steroidal derivatives containing lactone moiety were prepared via Michael addition reaction of α, β-unsaturated steroidal ketones with ethyl chloroacetate in basic medium. The characterization of novel compounds was accomplished by spectroscopic techniques such as IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, Mass spectrometry and elemental analysis. The compounds were screened for in vitro cytotoxicity against some particular human cancer cell lines using the MTT assay during which the compound 4 and 5 depicted potential anticancer behavior after showing IC50=19.41 μmol L−1 and 19.27 μmol L−1 against HeLa and MCF-7 cell line, respectively. The Gel electrophoresis demonstrated that steroidal lactone showed strong interaction during the concentration dependent cleavage activity with pBR322 DNA. The molecular docking study suggested the non-covalent bonding of steroidal lactones in minor groove of DNA. The results revealed that the synthesized compounds have better prospectus to act as cancer chemotherapeutic candidates which warrants further in vivo anticancer investigations.