Synthesis, Characterization, Molecular Docking, and Anticancer Evaluation of 4‐Thiazolidinone Analogues

Scaffolds containing one or more heteroatoms are ubiquitous in nature and are responsible for almost every biological processes in flora and fauna. The fact that heterocyclic cores have high propensity for biological targets, several nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur‐containing heterocyclic compounds have been reported in the last few decades. One such intriguing class is 4‐thiazolidinone that exhibit diverse range of pharmacological activities. In the present study, we report synthesis, characterization, molecular docking, and anticancer evaluation of 10 new 4‐thiazolidinone analogues (5–14). One of the compounds (11) was structurally characterized using single crystal X structure. Anticancer evaluation against hepatocellular carcinoma cell line (HepG2) revealed that compound (7) was the most potent (IC50 = 75 μM) while other showed moderate to low activity (85–530 μM). To underpin the druggability and possible modes of action, drug‐likeness was determined and docking studies were carried out against β‐carbonic anhydrase receptor (PDB ID: 3IA). Attempts have also been made to establish a structure–activity relationship of the reported compounds.