Hydrazones are active compounds having an azomethine –NHN=CH group and are widely studied owing to their ease of preparation and diverse pharmacological benefits. Novel isonicotinic hydrazone derivatives of vanillin aldehyde and salicyl aldehyde were synthesized that had azomethine linkages and were characterized by UV–Visible, FTIR, EI-MS, 1H-NMR and 13C-NMR spectroscopy. The compounds were screened for their antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilus, and Escherichia coli using disc diffusion and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) methods. For cytotoxicity, a brine shrimp lethality test was performed to calculate the lethal concentration (LC50). The results demonstrated appreciable antibacterial activities against the applied strains, amongst which the compounds coded NH3 and NH5 showed maximum inhibition and MIC responses. In terms of cytotoxic activity, the maximum effect was observed in compound NH5 and NH6 treatments with minimum survival percentages of 36.10 ± 3.45 and 32.44 ± 2.0, respectively. These hydrazones could be potential candidates in antitumorigenic therapy against various human cancer cells.

Genus Maytenus (Celastraceae) has proved to be a good source of new bioactive sesquiterpene pyridine alkaloids. Maytenus royleanus is a medicinal plant used in folk medicine for different ailments in a variety of ways around the world. Investigation of the roots of M. royleanus resulted in the isolation of an undescribed antitumor sesquiterpene pyridine alkaloid: Royleanine A (1). Its structure was established by analysis of spectroscopic data and comparison with reported data. Royleanine A (1) was evaluated for its antitumor potential against several cancer cell lines and was was found to be significantly active against OVC-5 cells (ovarian cancer cell line) with half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) 28.9 μg mL-1, cervical (Hela) IC50 0.064 and prostate (PC-3) cancer lines with 0.034 μg mL-1.