Synthesis and anticancer studies of novel benzimidazole/benzoxazole-pyrazine derivatives

A new series of aryl tethered benzimidazole-pyrazine and benzoxazole-pyrazine derivatives was synthesized via an intermediate chloro-aryl amine from 2,6-dichloropyrazine by adopting Pd(0)-catalysed Suzuki cross coupling and cyclo-condensation successively.The chloro-aryl amine was synthesised in high yield under transition metal free basic conditions.An efficient microwave mediated strategy was developed for the synthesis of benzoxazole-pyrazine derivatives.All the synthesized final targets were screened for in vitro cytotoxicity against human cancer cell lines MCF-7(breast), A-549(lung), A-375(melanoma) and DU-145(prostate) by employing Doxorubicin and Etoposide as controls.