Design, Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of of Novel Anticancer Agent tert-butyl 1-phenyl-3,4-dihydro-1H-pyrido[3,4-b]indole-2(9H)-carboxylate

Indole and its derivatives extensively exist in nature, which showed a wide range of biological activities. Recently, there is a growing tendency to develop some new methods for the synthesis of novel indole derivatives and to study their biological properties. In this paper, we would like to report the design, synthesis and biological evaluation of a novel series of tricyclic indoles by employing Pictet-Spengler reaction as key step. All the target compounds were synthesized in four steps in 68-78% overall yield, which were characterized by ¹H-NMR spectrum. All this new compounds were tested in an MTT assay on HepG2 and K562 and HT-29. Two of them showed tumor cell growth inhibitory good activity.