The reactions of 2-cyano-3-ferrocenylacrylonitrile with malononitrile in a ROH/H2O medium in the presence of Na2CO3 afforded 6-alkoxy-2-amino-4-ferrocenylpyridine-3,5-dicarbonitriles, 6-alkoxy-2-amino-4-ferrocenyl-3-ferrocenyl-methyl-3,4-dihydropyridine-3,5-dicarbonitriles and Na+ polymeric complexes: {[Na+(2-ferrocenyl(tetracyano)propenyl)−L]∞ and [Na+(2-amino-3,5-dicyano-4-ferrocenyl-6-pyridyl-dicyanomethyl)−L]∞ where L = ethanol, methanol. Complexes with L = acetonitrile (c), dimethylformamide (d), acetone (e), ethyl acetate (f) were prepared by recrystallization. The structures of the compounds 4b and Na+ polymeric complexes 5c and 6d, e were established by the spectroscopic data and X-ray diffraction analysis. Two compounds 3a and 4a were tested in vitro against six human tumor cell lines U-251, PC-3, K-562, HCT-15, MCF-7 and SKLU-1 to assess their in vitro antitumor activity. The results suggest biological specificity towards PC-3, K-562 and HCT-15 cells for compound 3a, and towards PC-3 cell for compound 4a at doses 50 μM, which are lower than Cisplatin IC50′s in the three cell lines.
