Cytotoxicity assessment of aroylhydrazone derivatives

Aroylhydrazones have been intensively investigated in recent years due to their versatile properties and applications. Many compounds of this type are biologically active as anticancer, antibacterial and antimicrobial agents. In addition, hydrazones as chelating agents were investigated as potential drugs for treatment of iron-overload associated diseases. In the present work, a group of 17 derivatives was studied for cytotoxic activity, as a part of our investigations on aroylhydrazones. The cytotoxic effect of the compounds was tested on non-tumor cells 3T3 and MCF10 and tumor cell lines HepG2, MCF7 and MDA-MB-231. Compound 11 exhibited the highest growth inhibitory effects on cell lines and significantly higher in tumor cell lines than in non-tumor cell lines. Compounds 5, C and E also show significantly higher cytotoxic activity in tumor cell lines than non-tumor cell lines in the experiment. The study makes it possible to assess the interaction between the structure and activity of the compounds and to understand the further development of hydrazones as more potent and selective antineoplastic agents.