Promising anti-breast cancer agents derived from substituted quinolines were discovered. The quinolines were readily synthesized in a large scale from a sequence of reactions starting from 4-acetamidoanisole. The Michael addition product was isolated as the reaction intermediate in the ring closing reaction of 4-amino-5-nitro-2-(3-trifluoromethylphenyloxy) anisole with methyl vinyl ketone leading to 6-methoxy-4-methyl-8-nitro-5-(3- ...