Synthesis, characterisation, antioxidant and anticancer evaluation of novel flavone-4-oximes

A series of novel flavone-4-oximes were synthesized by the oximation of substituted flavones. The synthesized compounds were characterized by various spectrochemical methods including IR, MS and NMR spectroscopy. Out of the 14 test compounds screened for their antioxidant activity, compounds such as JGS-VI (a N,N dimethyl benzaldehyde derivative) and JGS-VII (a 3,4 dimethoxy benzaldehyde derivative) exhibited antioxidant activity comparable to that of ascorbic acid and quercetin as standards following DPPH method. Compounds such as JGS-II (a p-fluoro benzaldehyde derivative), JGS-IV (a p-methyl benzaldehyde derivative) and JGS-V (a thiophene-2-aldehyde derivative) exhibited antioxidant activity among all the test compounds screened against ABTS. However, none of them showed any significant scavenging activity against nitric oxide scavenging assay in the concentration range of 200 μM-25μM. Further, anti-cancer potency for all the test compounds were evaluated by MTT assay against two different cell lines namely MCF-7 and Hep-G2. Compounds such as JGS-I (a p-chloro benzaldehyde derivative), JGS-II (a p-fluoro benzaldehyde derivative), JGS-IV, JGS-V (a thiophene-2-aldehyde derivative), JGS-VI and JGS-IX (a 3,4 chloro benzaldehyde derivative) exhibited activity better than the rest of the test compounds tested against MCF-7 cell lines. Compounds such as JGS-VI, JGS-VII, JGS-VIII (a p-bromo benzaldehyde derivative) and JGS-IX exhibited anti-cancer activity better than other test compounds tested against Hep-G2 cell lines. Thus, a few of the synthesized test compounds could become promising anti-cancer agents.