Synthesis and selective cytotoxicity of novel biphenyl-based tetrazole derivatives

Cancer today represents a significant public health problem worldwide, and the challenge is to produce cost-effective drugs. Recently, biphenyl compounds as well as tetrazole derivatives is known for their potential nonselective anticancer activities. In search of novel selective anticancer agents, a series of newly hybrid molecules was designed and synthesized by combining the structural features of biphenyl and tetrazole moieties. The structures of newly synthesized compounds were characterized using spectroscopic techniques (FT-IR, ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, and HMBC). Cytotoxic evaluations of these novels compound on human cancer cell lines showed a significant anticancer activity against more than one tested cell lines. Compounds 5n, 5j, and 5o proved to exhibit the strongest and selective cytotoxic effect on HepG2 and MCF-7 lines. Taken together, this study has led to the development of promising leads for cancer therapy.