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With the expectation to find out new anti-gastric cancer agents with high efficacy and selectivity, a series of novel tertiary sulfonamide derivatives were synthesized and the anti-cancer activity was studied in three selected cancer cell lines (MGC-803, PC-3, MCF-7) in vitro. Some of the synthesized compounds could significantly inhibit the proliferation of these tested cancer cells and were more potent than the positive control (5-Fu). The structure-activity relationship of tertiary sulfonamide derivatives was explored in this report. Among the tested compounds, compound 13g containing benzimidazole moiety showed the best anti-proliferation activities against MGC-803 cells (IC 50 = 1.02 μM), HGC-27 cells (IC 50 = 1.61 μM), SGC-7901 (IC 50 = 2.30 μM) cells as well as the good selectivity between the cancer and normal cells. Cellular mechanism studies elucidated compound 13g inhibited the colony formation of gastric cancer cell lines. Meanwhile, compound 13g arrested cell cycle at G2/M phase and induced cell apoptosis. Mechanistically, compound 13g markedly decreased p-Akt and p- c -Raf expression, which revealed that compound 13g targeted gastric cancer cell lines via interfering with AKT/mTOR and RAS/Raf/MEK/ERK pathways. All the findings suggest that compound 13g might be a valuable lead compound for the anti-gastric cancer agents. Image 1 • Novel sulfonamide derivatives containing benzimidazole moiety were designed and prepared. • Compound 13g displayed excellent anti-proliferative activity and lower toxicity against the non-cancer cells. • Structure-activity relationship of sulfonamide derivatives was depicted. • Compound 13g caused cell cycle arrest at G2/M phase and induced cell apoptosis. • Compound 13g could down-regulate the p-Akt and p- c -Raf expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]