Herein, fifteen new compounds containing coumarin, 1,2,3-triazole and benzoyl- substituted arylamine moieties were designed, synthesized and tested in vitro for their anticancer activity. The results showed that all tested compounds had moderate antiproliferative activity against MDA-MB-231, a human breast cancer cell line, under both normoxic and hypoxic conditions. Furthermore, the 4-substituted coumarin linked with benzoyl 3,4-dimethoxyaniline through 1,2,3-triazole (compound 5e) displayed the most prominent antiproliferative activities with an IC₅₀ value of 0.03 μM, about 5000 times stronger than 4-hydroxycoumarin (IC₅₀ > 100 μM) and 20 times stronger than doxorubicin (IC₅₀ = 0.60 μM). Meanwhile, almost all compounds revealed general enhancement of proliferation-inhibiting activity under hypoxia, contrasted with normoxia. A docking analysis showed that compound 5e had potential to inhibit carbonic anhydrase IX (CA IX).

Six new diphenyl ethers (1–6) along with eleven known analogs were isolated from the ethyl acetate extract of a marine-derived Aspergillus sydowii guided by LC-UV-MS. Their structures were unambiguously characterized by HRESIMS, NMR, as well as chemical derivatization. Compounds 1 and 2 are rare diphenyl ether glycosides containing d-ribose. The absolute configuration of the sugar moieties in compounds 1–3 was determined by a LC-MS method. All the compounds were evaluated for their cytotoxicities against eight cancer cell lines, including 4T1, U937, PC3, HL-60, HT-29, A549, NCI-H460, and K562, and compounds 1, 5, 6, and 8–11 were found to exhibit selective cytotoxicity against different cancer cell lines.

In order to develop novel chemotherapeutic agents with potent anticancer activities, we designed four series of novel compounds employing hybridization strategy. Twenty novel dihydroartemisinin-coumarin hybrids, 10a–e, 11a–e, 12a–e, 13a–e, were synthesized via click chemistry in this study and their structures were characterized by HRMS and NMR. The cytotoxic activities were measured by MTT assay against three cancer cell lines (HCT-116, MDA-MB-231, and HT-29) under normoxic or anoxic conditions, respectively. The target compounds exhibited moderate activity with IC₅₀ values in the 0.05–125.40 μM range, and these compounds exhibited better activity against HT-29 cell line under anoxic condition. The cytotoxic activities of most compounds under anoxic condition displayed one- to 10-fold greater activity than under normoxic condition. Compounds 10a–e showed better selectivity against the HT-29 cell line than the other two cell lines. These results indicated that our design of CA IX inhibitors does correspond with its action mode to some degree and deserves further investigation.

Cancer patients frequently suffer from cancer-related fatigue (CRF), which is a complex syndrome associated with weakness and depressed mood. Neuroinflammation is one of the major inducers of CRF. The aim of this study is to find a potential agent not only on the treatment of cancer, but also for reducing CRF level of cancer patients. In this study, total-thirty new Dihydroartemisinin–Coumarin hybrids (DCH) were designed and synthesized. The in vitro cytotoxicity against cancer cell lines (HT-29, MDA-MB-231, HCT-116, and A549) was evaluated. Simultaneously, we also tested the anti-neuroinflammatory activity of DCH. DCH could inhibit the activated microglia N9 release of NO, TNF-α, and IL-6. The docking analysis was shown that MD-2, the coreceptor of TLR4, might be one of the targets of DCH.