Synthesis and biological evaluations of N′-substituted methylene-4-(quinoline-4-amino) benzoylhydrazides as potential anti-hepatoma agents

Novel quinoline derivatives 5h and 5j act as c-Myc inhibitors and suppress HepG2 cell growth and migration. [Display omitted] •Novel quinoline derivatives both 5h and 5j are c-Myc inhibitors.•5h exhibits potent cytotoxicity against HepG2, SMMC-7721, and Huh7 cells.•5h and 5j show anti-survival effects in HepG2 cells.•5h and 5j induce apoptosis and G2/M cell cycle arrest in HepG2 cells.•5h and 5j suppress HepG2 cell migration. In the effort to develop novel quinoline derivatives for the treatment of liver cancer, we synthesized a series of N′-Substituted methylene-4-(quinoline-4-amino) benzoylhydrazides and evaluated their biological activities as anticancer agents. Compounds 5h and 5j were found to be the potent antiproliferative agents against HepG2 cell line with an IC50 value of 12.6 ± 0.1 μM and 27.3 ± 1.7 μM, respectively. The most effective compound 5h also exhibited potent cytotoxicity against SMMC-7721 and Huh7 cells with IC50 values of 9.6 ± 0.7 μM and 6.3 ± 0.2 μM, respectively. Inspiringly, both 5h and 5j exhibited lower cytotoxic property in normal cells than hepatic carcinoma cells. Compounds 5h and 5j could down-regulate mRNA level of c-Myc and expression level of c-Myc. Meanwhile, they decreased expression level of anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 and increased expression levels of pro-apoptotic protein Bax and cleaved PARP with reference to tubulin. So various assays including cell colony formation, cell cycle distribution, as well as cell apoptosis and migration were performed to understand their antitumor role. It was confirmed that 5h and 5j inhibited the growth of HepG2 cells due to their anti-survival effect, induction of cell cycle arrest and cell apoptosis, and inhibition of cell migration. These results demonstrated that 5h might be as potential lead compounds to develop anticancer agents for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma.