Abstract A series of multisubstituted indole–acrylonitrile hybrids were designed, synthesized and evaluated for their potential cytotoxic activities. The bio-evaluation results indicated that some of the target compounds (such as 3a, 3f, 3k, 3n) exhibited good to moderate cytotoxic effect on HepG2, BCG-823, BEL-7402, and HL-7702 cell lines. Especially, the compounds 3a and 3k also exhibited high cytotoxic activities (3a, 19.38±3.38 μM; 3k, 15.43±3.54 μM) ...
