The antiproliferative activities of new substituted tetrahydroisoquinolines (THIQs) are described. Their cytotoxicities against Ishikawa human endometrial cell line were determined after 72 h drug expose employing Celtiter-Glo assay at concentrations ranging from 0.01 to 100,000 nM. The antiproliferative activities of the compounds understudy were compared to tamoxifen (TAM). In-vitro results indicated that most of the compounds showed better activity than TAM. The most active compounds obtained in this study were 1, 2, 3 and 22 whose IC50 values are 1.41, 0.91, 0.74 and 0.36 μM respectively. This study helped us to evaluate the risk of developing endometrial cancer in the design of non-steroid estrogen receptor modulators with no agonistic effects on uterus. In-silico pharmacophore hypotheses were generated using GALAHAD and PHASE and the best models with a probable bioactive conformation(s) for these compounds were proposed. These conformations and the alignments of the molecular structures give us an insight in designing compounds with better biological activity.
Keywords: Antiproliferative agents; Ishikawa Cell lines; Pharmacophore Models; Tetrahydroisoquinolines.