Evaluation of the Cytotoxic Effect of Hydroxypyridinone Derivatives on HCT116 and SW480 Colon Cancer Cell Lines

Abstract

According to the literature, iron chelators have been used to inhibit tumor cell proliferation. Hydroxypyridinones, due to easy derivatization and high affinity for iron, have been suggested as an attractive target for the development of iron scavenging ligands. N-arylhydroxypyridinone derivatives as iron chelators have been previously designed and synthesized, and the present study is performed in order to evaluate the antitumor efficacy of these compounds,. Four derivatives of hydroxypyridinone were tested against HCT116 and SW480 colon cancer cell lines for 48 h using MTT assay. One compound (3-hydroxy-2-methyl-1-phenylpyridin-4(1H)-one, PMPO) showed the maximum cytotoxic activity on both HCT116 and SW480 cancer cells with IC₅₀ = 243 and 180 μmol, respectively, for 48 h treatment. The obtained results demonstrated that various concentrations of test compounds exhibited significant reduction of the cell viability (P < 0.05) in a concentration dependent manner. Our findings indicate that the proposed hydroxypyridinone derivatives can be considered as a new option for the treatment of colon cancer.