An efficient one-pot three-component synthesis of 2-(4-(2-oxo-2H-chromen-3-yl)thiazol-2-yl)-3-arylacrylonitriles and their cytotoxic activity evaluation with molecular docking

Abstract A facile, convenient and one-pot three-component method has been outlined for the synthesis of title compounds by treating equimolar amounts of 3-(2-bromoacetyl)-2 H -chromen-2-one ( 2 ) with 2-cyanothioacetamide ( 3 ) and various aryl/heteryl aldehydes ( 5 or 7 ) independently. The effect of solvent and catalyst on this one-pot reaction has been studied and the use of l -proline in ethanol was found to be effective to achieve the target compounds ( 6 & 8 ) in fair yields. These synthesized compounds were further assessed for the anti-hepatoma activity, and their action mechanism was also investigated by using molecular docking studies. All the compounds 6(a-h) & 8(a-f) manifested excellent potency for anti-hepatoma activity. It should be noted that, compounds 6e , 6f have exhibited almost equipotent activity with reference to standard drug Nexavar.