Discovery of a new tetramethylpyrazine based chalcone with alpha, beta -Unsaturated ketone moiety as a potential anticancer agent

Abstract

In this study, a new ligustrazine-based chalcone molecule has been synthesized that contains an extra α, β-Unsaturated ketone moiety along with α, the β-Unsaturated carbonyl group of chalone. A new tetramethylpyrazine (TMP) based aldehyde was synthesized to make the TMP (ligustrazine) as part of chalcone and then it was reacted with newly synthesized ketone containing additional α, β-Unsaturated ketone moiety. After characterization, this new compound was evaluated for its effect on different types of cancer cell lines and very promising results were obtained. The growth of these cancer cells was inhibited by newly designed and synthesized compounds, especially for colon and pancreatic cancer cells with IC₅₀, 0.04 - 0.05 µM.