Helical arrangement of 2-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-benzothiazole in crystal formation and biological evaluation on HeLa cells

Benzothiazoles are a set of molecules with a broad spectrum of biological applications. In particular, 2-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-benzothiazole is a potential breast cancer cell suppressor whose mechanism of action has been previously reported. In the present work, the title compound was synthesized, crystallized, and its biological activity on HeLa cells was evaluated. Its molecular structure was compared to that obtained by molecular modeling. Theoretical calculations suggest that the syn-rotamer is the most stable form and correlates very well with crystallographic data. The crystal structure adopts a helical arrangement formed through O13—H13···N3 intermolecular hydrogen bonding that propagates in the (14 -1 -3) plane. These results suggest that the title compound has the capacity to interleave into DNA and better explain its biological effects related to the increased CHIP expression through AhR recruitment. Finally, the biological experiments indicate that the title compound has the capacity to decrease the viability of HeLa cells with an IC₅₀ = 2.86 μM.