Supramolecular Gels Derived from Simple Organic Salts of Flufenamic Acid: Design, Synthesis, Structures, and Plausible Biomedical Application

Following
supramolecular synthon rationale in the context of crystal
engineering, a nonsteroidal-anti-inflammatory-drug (NSAID), namely
flufenamic acid (FA) and its β-alanine monopeptide
derivative (FM), were converted to a series of primary
ammonium monocarboxylate (PAM) salts. Majority of the PAM salts (∼90%)
showed gelation with various solvents including water and methyl salicylate
(important solvents in topical gel formulation). Structure–property
correlation studies based on single-crystal X-ray diffraction (SXRD)
and powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) data provided intriguing insights
into the structure of the gel network. Furthermore, one of the gelator
salts (S7) displayed anticancer activity on a highly
aggressive human breast cancer cell line (MDA-MB-231)
,as revealed by MTT, PEG2, and cell migration assays.