Synthesis and biological profile of substituted benzimidazoles

BACKGROUND: A series of benzimidazole derivatives was developed and its chemical scaffolds were authenticated by NMR, IR, elemental analyses and physicochemical properties. The synthesized compounds were screened for their antimicrobial and antiproliferative activities. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The synthesized benzimidazole compounds were evaluated for their antimicrobial activity using the tube dilution method and were found to exhibit good antimicrobial potential against selected Gram negative and positive bacterial and fungal species. The compounds were also assessed for their anticancer activity exhibited using the SRB assay and were found to elicit antiproliferative activity against MCF7 breast cancer cell line, which was comparable to the standard drug. CONCLUSION: Antimicrobial screening results indicated that compounds 1, 2 and 19 to be promising antimicrobial agents against selected microbial species and comparable to standard drugs which included norfloxacin and fluconazole. The anticancer screening results revealed that compounds, 12, 21, 22 and 29 to show the highest activity against MCF7 and their IC(50) values were more potent than 5-fluorouracil. [Image: see text]