Synthesis and Cytotoxic Evaluation of Carboxylic Acid

In order to find out the influence of carboxylic acid functionalities in the N-lactam side chains of indenoisoquinolines on cytotoxic activities, several new compounds have been synthesized and structurally characterized by analytical and spectral methods. The incorporation of a carboxylic acid group into the lactam side chain of indenoisoquinolines results in differences in cytotoxicity. The results indicated that compound 18c displayed substantial cytotoxic specificity toward KB and HepG2 cancer cells