First synthesis of rugosaflavonoid and its derivatives and their activity against breast cancer

Rugosaflavonoid, is a secondary metabolite isolated from the plant Rosa rugosa was synthesized in five simple steps from commercially available 3,5-dihydroxy benzoic acid involving domino aldol-Michael-oxidation reaction. This is the first report of the synthesis of rugosaflavonoid (6a). A series of its derivatives were also synthesized, characterized and evaluated for the cytotoxicity against the breast cancer MCF-7 and normal NIH3T3 cell lines. The synthetic derivatives of rugosaflavonoid showed comparable activity in both the cell lines and compounds 6d, 6e and 6f, which were found to be cytotoxic towards MCF-7 cell lines but nontoxic to NIH3T3 cell lines at 5 μM concentration. In an attempt to explore the mode of action of the best active compounds, docking on the ATP binding site of EGFR (1M17) was performed considering that EGFR over-expressed in most of the tumors. The docking score (Gscore) of 6f and standard quercetin was found to be −8.608 and −8.310 respectively.