CYTOTOXIC NAPHTHALENE BASED-SYMMETRICAL DISELENIDES WITH INCREASED SELECTIVITY AGAINST MCF-7 BREAST CANCER CELLS

Saad Shaaban*, Hatem E. Gaffer, Yasir Jabar, Saad S. Elmorsy

A series of naphthalene based-symmetrical diselenides were synthesized in good-moderate yields and their in vitro cytotoxic activity was evaluated against breast adenocarcinoma (MCF-7) and compared with their cytotoxicity in normal fibroblast cells (WI-38). Furthermore, their in vitro antimicrobial activities were also evaluated against gram-negative (Escherichia coli), gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) bacteria and the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans. A significant difference in toxicity zones between the breast solid tumor MCF-7 cells and normal WI-38 cells was observed indicating that it is not general selenium toxicity. Within this context, compounds 2, 9, 10, 12, 19, and 20 exhibited therapeutic indices (TI) up to eleven fold and in most cases were higher than the TI of 5- fluorouracil (5-fu) suggesting their effectiveness as anti-cancer agents. Indeed, these ccompounds exhibited also good antibacterial activity against E. coli bacteria compared to the known drug, ampicillin. Moreover, compounds 2, 7, 8 and 10 exhibited good antifungal activity against C. albicans compared to colitrimazole.