Interest in the chemistry of pyridocarbazoles and indoloquinolines has increased this last decade since these skeletons are present in a large number of alkaloids of biological interest. For example, the indoloquinoline type alkaloid cryptolepine 1 (Fig. 1) extracted from the roots of Cryptolepis sanguinolenta 1) has been shown to exhibit antiplasmodial, 2) antibacterial 3) and cytotoxic properties. 4,5) This last activity is due to cryptolepine intercalation into DNA and subsequent inhibition of DNA religation by topoisomerase II. 5) Another example concerns the pyridocarbazole type alkaloid ellipticine 2 (Fig. 1) extracted from the leaves of Ochrosia elliptica 6) which has exhibited cytotoxic properties by different mechanisms : intercalation into DNA, 7) inhibition of topoisomerase II,8) formation of covalent adducts with DNA after bioactivation, 9) stimulation of apoptosis. 10) Different linear and angular analogs of these compounds have already been synthetized by several groups [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] but the series of indolo [2,3-c]quinoline and pyrido [2,3-c]carbazole haven't been studied yet.Therefore, as a part of our program concerning the elaboration of analogs of natural products, we are interested in the chemistry as well as in the biological activities of these angular heterocycles. 18,19) Our methodology resides in the photocyclization of enaminones derived from 3 or 6-aminoquinoline ( Fig. 1). Enaminones represent convenient tools in heterocyclic chemistry since they can be implicated in the elaboration of carbazoles, 20) a-carbolines, 21) b-carbolines and dcarbolines.22,23) The photocyclization can occur through an electrocyclization for tertiary enaminones or through a radical process for halogenated enaminones.24) Furthermore, in our recent works, we obtained N-benzylpyridocarbazoles and indoloquinolines from tertiary N-benzylenaminones 25) and non N-substituted compounds from secondary iodinated enaminones. 26) In the present work, we investigate the reactivity of tertiary enaminones carrying an alkyl or a dialkylaminoalkyl side chain 3 and report the results of in vitro cytotoxicity studies of the obtained cyclized compounds 4.
ChemistryFirtsly, the reactivity of tertiary enaminones derived from 3-aminoquinoline was studied. According to previously described procedures, 22,23,25,26) the secondary enaminone 7 is obtained by condensation of 3-aminoquinoline 5 and 1,3-cyclohexandione 6 in toluene with catalytic amounts of p-toluenesulfonic acid. Then, a methyl or a diethylaminoethyl side chain was introduced on the enaminone nitrogen by treating secondary enaminone 7 by sodium hydride, and then by methyl iodide or by the hydrochloride salt of diethylaminoethylchloride to give 8 and 9. The dimethylaminopropyl side chain couldn't be introduced following this protocole. However, the tertiary enaminone 10 was obtained by treating compound 7 with the hydrochloride salt of dimethylaminopropylchloride in presence of sodium hydride in dimethylformamide (DMF) 27) (Fig. 2). The methyl substituent w...