Design, synthesis and pharmacological evaluation of new anticancer fused pentacycles.

The quinoline chromophore has long formed the basis for the clinical development of novel antitumour agents. Camptothecin derivatives have already proved their clinical efficacy and compounds such as ascididemin (pyridoacridine family), DHDMC (protoberberine family) have a very promising future. During our search for new cytotoxic molecules, we have designed compounds based on the benzo[c]pyrido[2,3,4-kl]acridine skeleton which combines the structural features of ascididemin and DHDMC. Corresponding compounds were synthesized and evaluated for their cytotoxic activity against human prostatic PC-3 cell lines. Some have shown promising biological activity in inhibiting the growth of cell lines which are resistant to camptothecin.