Novel porphyrin–psoralen conjugates: synthesis, DNA interaction and cytotoxicity studies

Abstract

The indole ring system is the most privileged heterocycle in nature and embedded in many biological systems. The demonstration of many indole containing alkaloids as leads for the new pharmaceutical agents, the recognition of the importance of essential amino acid tryptophan in human nutrition and the discovery of plant hormones served to bring about a massive search on indole chemistry. This led to report vast number of structurally diversified bio-active natural and synthetic indoles. The present review focuses on the structure-based drug design of variety of classes of synthetic indoles as potent anticancer agents. Particularly, the recent developments on natural-product inspired rational synthesis of functionalized indoles, indolylazoles and bis(indoles) and their anticancer activities are presented. This review also drawn the attention towards combretastatin-based structural class of indoles and well discussed their potentials as tubulin polymerization inhibitors