Design and synthesis of novel nucleobase-based barbiturate derivatives as potential anticancer agents

Cancer today remains one of the most deadly diseases in the world. In search of novel anticancer agents, a series of newly hybrid molecules were designed and synthesized by combining the structural features of nucleobase and barbiturate derivatives using the concept of green chemistry. This approach was accomplished efficiently using the aqueous medium to give the corresponding products in a high yield. The newly synthesized compounds were characterized by spectral analysis FT-IR, ¹H NMR, ¹³C-NMR, HMBC, MASS and elemental analysis. Evaluations of these molecules over four cell lines panel of human cancer cells have identified several compounds with significant anticancer activities against one or more cell lines. Compounds TBC and TBA proved to exhibit a wide cytotoxic effect on the tested four cell lines at (IC₅₀ 16–24 μM) and (IC₅₀ 25–34 μM), respectively. Other compounds, e.g., 1,3-BA, showed a selective cytotoxicity against HepG2 at 7 μM. Taken together, this study has led to the development of a convenient, a highly yielded, and an environmentally friendly synthetic method of highly promising leads for cancer fighting.