FR2638047: Substituted 4 -acrylamidopodophyllotoxin congeners as antitumour antibiotics and process for the preparation thereof

The invention provides compounds of general formula (3) as useful potential antitumour agents against human cancer cell lines. The invention further provides a process for the synthesis of 4?-acrylamidopodophyllotoxin congeners of general formula (3), wherein R and R1 are an aryl group and R is selected from 3,4,5-trimethoxyphenyl or 2-methoxy phenyl and R1 is selected from the group consisting of 4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl, 3-hydroxy-4-methoxyphenyl, 4-fluoro-3-methoxyphenyl, 3-fluoro-4-methoxyphenyl, 2-fluoro-5-methoxyphenyl, 2-fluoro-4-methoxyphenyl, 4-hydroxy-3-nitrophenyl, 4-methoxy-3-nitrophenyl, 4-nitrophenyl, 3-nitrophenyl, 2-nitro phenyl, 4-methoxyphenyl, 3-methoxyphenyl and 4-hydroxyphenyl.