Diindolylmethane derivatives as apoptosis inductors in L5178y cells

Cell growth and division are highly regulated processes, although a notable exception is provided by the cancer cell, which arises as a variant that has lost the usual proliferation control pathways. Consequently, there is growing interest in the search for antitumoral substances with high efficacy, low toxicity, and minimum side effects. In this sense, we synthesize eight diindolylmethane derivatives and the in vitro antitumor activity against murine L5178Y lymphoma cells was assessed. The preliminary results showed that the substituent and its position on the phenyl group were important for its potency against the lymphoma cells tested. Compound 3a was the most active compound with 93 % cell grown inhibition and 71.04% of apoptosis.