Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of novel 1,5-disubstituted isatin derivatives as antitumor agents

Isatin (1H-indole-2,3-dione) was reported to possess anticancer activities through its effect on tumor proliferation, apoptosis, and metastasis in vitro and in vivo. Here, we described the synthesis of a novel series of 1,5-disubstituted isatin derivatives with 2-indolinone scaffold as antitumor agents. Most of the synthesized compounds revealed potent antiproliferative effects in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) cell lines, among which 7l possessed promising activities with IC₅₀ values ranging from 0.4 to 1.3 μM. Following flow cytometric analysis, compound 7l efficiently arrested the cell cycle at G2/M phase, and induced apoptosis. Thus, this study shows promise in therapeutics of 1,5-disubstituted isatin derivatives in MCL and provides novel potential and efficient antitumor agents. [Figure not available: see fulltext.]