Abstract:
Cancer has become a burning issue due to its deadly effects worldwide. Chemist is trying to
synthesize drugs with less cytotoxicity, minimum side effects and better efficacy.
Methotrexate is a drug having strong anticancer activity, but with serious side effects. Several
derivatives have been synthesized by modification at different sites of methotrexate to reduce
its side effects and enhance efficacy. Schiff bases achieved a special place due to their
biological activities like antitumor activity, antifungal activity, anti-malarial, antivirus,
antibacterial and many others. Nine Schiff bases have been synthesized by the reaction of
methotrexate with different aldehydes. These schiff base derivatives tested for anticancer
activity on gliomas cell lines and compared with the parent drug. Methotrexate derivatives
with 2- Chlorobenzaldehyde, 2-Thiocarboxyaldehyde, and 2- pentenal show better results on
100 μM even on lower concentration than Methotrexate, which shows the same result at
higher concentration 400 μM. Characterization techniques used are IR, HNMR and CNMR.
