Synthesis and characterization of new functionalized ionic liquids: Anticancer, cheminformatics and modeling studies

Twelve new functionalized imidazolium-based ionic liquids (ILs) were synthesized under both conventional and eco-friendly ultrasound procedures. The yields were better with eco-friendly and green ultrasound procedures (6.10-11.11% greater). Newly synthesized ILs were well-characterized with FT-IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, 11B, 19F, 31P, and elemental analyses. All ILs (5–16) were screened for their in vitro antitumor activities for four cancer cell lines. The results revealed that most of the ILs exhibited excellent anti-tumor activities against both colon and breast cancer cells. However, ILs 9 and 10 appear to be the most active against the selected cell lines with IC50 values in the range of 0.11±4 to 0.14±10 and 0.11±9 to 0.88±4. The anticancer mechanism was developed by docking study with DNA. The binding affinities were in the range of -4.1 to -4.5 kcal/mol; confirming strong interactions with DNA. The reported ILs showed significant anticancer activities which may be future anti-cancer drugs. In silico data followed Lipinski’s rule for selection as drug candidates. Toxicity data have also shown that all compounds have a non-toxic profile and observed in vivo IC50 in accepted criteria (2.61-2.75 mol). Therefore, the reported ILs may be the future safe anticancer medicines.