Cytotoxic Activity and Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships of Arylpropyl Sulfonamides

B13 is a ceramide analogue and apoptosis inducer with potent cytotoxic activity. A series of arylpropyl sulfonamide analogues of B13 were evaluated for their cytotoxicity using MTT assays in prostate cancer PC-3 and leukemia HL-60 cell lines. Some compounds (4, 9, 13, 14, 15, and 20) showed stronger activities than B13 in both tumor cell lines, and compound (15) gave the most potent activity with $IC_{50}$ values of 29.2 and 20.7 ${\mu}M$, for PC-3and HL-60 cells, respectively. Three-dimensional quantitative structure-activity relationship (3D-QSAR) analysis was performed to build highly reliable and predictive CoMSIA models with cross-validated $q^2$ values of 0.816 and 0.702, respectively. Our results suggest that long alkyl chains and a 1R, 2R configuration of the propyl group are important for the cytotoxic activities of arylpropyl sulfonamides. Moreover, the introduction of small hydrophobic groups in the phenyl ring and sulfonamide group could increase biological activity.