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A new series of hybrid compounds with tropinone and thiazole rings in the structure was designed and synthesized as potential anticancer agents. They were tested against human multiple myeloma (RPMI 8226), lung carcinoma (A549), breast adenocarcinoma (MDA-MB-231), and mouse skin melanoma (B16-F10) cell lines. Toxicity was tested on human normal skin fibroblasts (HSF) and normal colon fibroblasts (CCD-18Co). The growth inhibition mechanism of the most active derivative was analyzed through investigation of its effect on the distribution of cell cycle phases and ability to induce apoptosis and necrosis in RPMI 8226 and A549 cancer cells. The tyrosinase inhibitory potential was assessed, followed by molecular docking studies. Compounds 3a–3h show high anticancer activity against MDA-MB-231 and B16-F10 cell lines with IC50 values of 1.51–3.03 µM. Moreover, the cytotoxic activity of the investigated compounds against HSF and CCD-18Co cells was 8–70 times lower than against the cancer cells or no toxicity was shown in our tests, with derivative 3a being particularly successful. The mechanism of action of compound 3a in RPMI 8226 cell was shown to be through induction of cell death through apoptosis. The derivatives show ability to inhibit the tyrosinase activity with a mixed mechanism of inhibition. The final molecular docking results showed for IC50 distinct correlation with experiment.

The paper presents synthesis and characterization of nine new thiazolyl-(phenyldiazenyl)-2H-chromen-2-one dyes. The impact of substituent structure in thiazole ring in the synthesized azocoumarin derivatives on electrochemical properties, photoisomerization process and photovoltaic response was examined. The dyes were electrochemically active and undergo reduction and oxidation processes. They showed low electrochemically estimated energy band gap in the range of 1.71–2.13 eV. Photoisomerization process of the synthesized molecules was studied in various solvents such as ethanol, chloroform and N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) upon the UV illumination. It was found that novel azodyes showed reversible trans-cis-trans isomerization and exhibited long thermal back to the trans form, that was even 7 days in DMF. Selected azocoumarin were molecularly dispersed in polystyrene for preparation of guest-host azopolymer systems to study the cis-trans thermal isomerization of obtained dyes in solid state. The photovoltaic activity of the azochromophores was tested in bulk-heterojunction solar cells. They acting as weak donors in device with structure ITO/PEDOT:PSS/dye:PC70BM/Al. No photovoltaic response of cells with azocoumarin derivatives bearing 4-fluorobenzene, 3,4-dichlorobenzene, or 4-(1-adamantyl) unit was found. Additionally, dye which showed the best activity was examined in three-component solar cells ITO/PEDOT:PSS/PTB7:PC70BM:dye/PFN/Al.