Chemometric Study of the Antiproliferative Activity of Some New Hydantoin Derivatives: Assessment of Activity and Chromatographic Lipophilicity Data

Cancer is the major health problem affecting the mankind of today. Most of the drugs used in traditional chemotherapy are very limited and the discovery of novel, more active, more selective and less toxic ones is still very intensive. A chemometric approach was applied in the study of antiproliferative activity against human colon cancer and breast cancer as well as in the study of lipophilicity of 3-(4-substitutedbenzyl)-5-ethyl-5-phenyl- and 3-(4-substituted benzyl)-5,5-diphenylhydantoins. Hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) shows that the investigated hydantoins have higher antiproliferative activity against human breast cancer cells than against human colon cancer cells. However, some hydantoins at the highest applied concentration reverse antiproliferative effect, higher against the human colon cancer cells and lower against human breast cancer cells. Principal component analysis (PCA) gives better insight into the activity of hydantoins related to their structural changes. It distinguishes more active compounds from the less active ones according to various criteria. Generally, more lipophilic 5,5-diphenylhydantoins exhibit a higher antiproliferative activity comparing to less lipophilic 5-ethyl-5-phenylhydantoins. Also, a substituent attached to benzyl moieties affects the activity additionally. The activity is particularly pronounced for compounds with cyano, methyl, chloro and bromo group. Halogen substituent were superior in antiproliferative capacity particularly in the series of 5,5-diphenylhydantoins