Esters of quinoxaline 1ˏ4-Di-N-oxide with cytotoxic activity on tumor cell lines based on NCI-60 panel

Quinoxalines display diverse and interesting pharmacological activities as antibacterial,antiviral,antiparasitic and anticancer agents. particularly,their 1ˏ4-di-n-oxide derivatives have proved to be cytotoxic agents that are active under hypoxic conditions as that of solid tumours. a new series of quinoxaline 1ˏ4-di-n-oxide substitutes at 7-position with esters group were synthetized and characterized by infrared (ir),proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1h-nmr),spectroscopy,and elemental analysis. seventeen derivatives (m1-m3,e1-e8,p1-p3 and dr1-dr3) were selected and evaluated for antitumor activities using the nci-60 human tumor cell lines screen. results showed that e7,p3 and e6 were the most active compounds against the cell lines tested. substitutions at 7-position with esters group not necessarily affect the biological activity,but the nature of the esters group could exert an influence on the selectivity. additionally,substitutions at 2-position influenced the cytotoxic activity of the compounds. © 2017 by school of pharmacy shaheed beheshti university of medical sciences and health services.