Xanthone Conjugated Amino Acids As Potential Anticancer And DNA Binding Agents: Molecular Docking, Cytotoxicity And SAR Studies.

Amino acids conjugated with heterocyclic molecules are well known for their effective bioactive properties. In search of effective anticancer agents, a series of xanthone linked amino acids 2-23 were synthesized and tested for in vitro anticancer and DNA binding studies against three different cancer cell lines MCF-7, MDA-MB-435 and A549 and validated by DNA binding and molecular docking approaches. Compounds 7, 8 and 9 exhibited potent anticancer activity against tested cancer cell lines and DNA binding study using methyl green comparing to Doxorubicin and ethidium bromide as a positive control respectively. The structure-activity relationship (SAR) showed that the aromatic and hydrophobic amino acids (phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan) favoured the DNA binding studies and anticancer activity whereas, aliphatic amino acids showed least anticancer activity. In the molecular docking study, binding interactions of the most active compounds 7, 8 and 9 were confirmed to molecular surface of DNA is represented as Adenine (green), Thymine (red), Guanine (yellow) and Cytosine (blue) in respective colours.