A novel series of twenty 3-thiocyanato-1H-indoles, carrying diversification at positions N-1, C-2 and C-5 of the heterocyclic core, were synthesized; their antiproliferative activity against four human cancer cell lines (HL60, HEP-2, NCI-H292 and MCF-7) was evaluated, employing doxorubicin as positive control. Indole, N-methylindole and 2-(4-chlorophenyl)-N-methylindole demonstrated to be essentially inactive, whereas several of their congener 3-thiocyanato-1H-indoles displayed good to excellent levels of potency (IC₅₀ ≤ 6 μM), while being non-hemolytic.

N-Phenyl-3-thiocyanato-1H-indole and 1-methyl-2-(4-chlorophenyl)-3-thiocyanato-1H-indole showed good to high potency against all the cell lines. On the other side, the N-(4-chlorophenyl)-, 2-(4-chlorophenyl)- and 2-phenyl- 3-thiocyanato-1H-indole derivatives were slightly less active against the test cell lines.

Overall, these results suggest that the indole-3-thiocyanate motif can be suitably decorated to afford highly cytotoxic compounds and that the substituted indole can be employed as a useful scaffold toward more potent compounds.

合成了一系列新的二十二十个3-硫代氰基-1 H-吲哚，它们在杂环核的N-1，C-2和C-5位上具有多样性。使用阿霉素作为阳性对照，评估了它们对四种人类癌细胞系（HL60，HEP-2，NCI-H292和MCF-7）的抗增殖活性。吲哚，Ñ甲基吲和2-（4-氯苯基） - ñ甲基吲证明是基本上无活性的，而他们的几个同类的3-氰硫基1 ħ -indoles显示良好至效力优秀水平（IC ₅₀  ≤6μM） ，同时不溶血。

N-苯基-3-硫氰酸根-1 H-吲哚和1-甲基-2-（4-氯苯基）-3-硫氰酸根-1 H-吲哚对所有细胞系表现出良好至高的效力。另一方面，N-（4-氯苯基）-，2-（4-氯苯基）-和2-苯基-3-硫代氰基-1 H-吲哚衍生物对测试细胞系的活性略低。

总体而言，这些结果表明，可以适当地修饰吲哚-3-硫氰酸酯基序以提供高度细胞毒性的化合物，并且可以将取代的吲哚用作对更有效的化合物有用的支架。