Synthesis and cytotoxic evaluation of novel indenoisoquinoline-substituted triazole hybrids

Abstract The synthesis of various substituted triazole–indenoisoquinoline hybrids was performed based on a CuI-catalyzed 1,3-cycloaddition between propargyl-substituted derivatives and the azide-containing indenoisoquinoline. Besides, a variety of N -(alkyl)propargylindenoisoquinolines was used as substrates for the construction of triazole–indenoisoquinoline–AZT conjugated via a click chemistry-mediated coupling with 3′-azido-3′-deoxythymidine (AZT). Thus, twenty three new indenoisoquinoline-substituted triazole hybrids were successfully prepared and evaluated as cytotoxic agents, revealing an interesting anticancer activity of four triazole linker–indenoisoquinoline–AZT hybrids in KB and HepG2 cancer cell lines.