Diastereoselective synthesis of novel spiro indanone fused pyrano[3,2- c ]chromene derivatives following hetero-Diels–Alder reaction and in vitro anticancer studies

. The screening results revealed that many of the compounds are showing moderate to high levels of anticancer activities against the tested cancer cell lines and some displayed potent inhibitory activities in comparison to the commercial anticancer drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). Among the series, compound 3'c showed most potent cytotoxicity (15.0-27.5 μM) in three cancer cell lines (MCF-7, HCT-116 and MD-MB-231).