Design and Syntheses of Novel Fluoroporphyrin–Anthraquinone Complexes as Antitumor Agents

A novel fluoroporphyrin–anthraquinone hybrid with dipeptide link and its metal complexes were synthesized and evaluated for anti-proliferation activity in human cancer cell line HeLa. The preliminary results demonstrated that all the compounds showed moderate to excellent antitumor activities. Among the active compounds, compound 3 which contains fluorinated porphyrin–anthraquinone and zinc ion exhibited the highest potency with IC50 value of 8.83 µM, indicating that it was a promising antitumor candidate.