Bioactivity of Ionic Liquids Based on Valproate in SH-SY5Y Human Neuroblastoma Cell Line

The search for alternative and effective therapies to fight cancer is one of the main goals of the pharmaceutical industry. Recently, ionic liquids (ILs) have emerged as potential therapeutic agents with antitumor properties. The goal of this study was to synthesize and evaluate the bioactivity of different ILs coupled with the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) valproate (VPA) as an antitumor agent. The toxicity of the prepared ionic liquids was evaluated by the MTT cell metabolic assay in human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y and human primary Gingival Fibroblast (GF) cell lines, in which they showed inhibitory effects during the study period. In addition, low cytotoxicity against GF cell lines was observed, suggesting that these compounds are not toxic to human cell lines. [C2OHDMiM][VPA] demonstrated an outstanding antitumor activity against SH-SY5Y and lower activity against the non-neoplastic GF line. The herein assessed compounds played an important role in the modulation of the signaling pathways involved in the cellular behavior. This work also highlights the potential of these ILs-API as possible antitumor agents.