Prolinamides are present in secondary metabolites and have wide-ranging biological properties as well as antimicrobial and cytotoxic activities.

N-(4’-substituted phenyl)-L-prolinamides 4a–4w were synthesised in two steps, starting from the condensation of p-fluoronitrobenzene 1a–1b with L-proline 2a–2b, under aqueous–alcoholic basic conditions to afford N-aryl-L-prolines 3a–3c, which underwent amidation via a two-stage, one-pot reaction involving SOCl₂ and amines, to furnish L-prolinamides in 20–80% yield.

The cytotoxicities of 4a–4w against four human carcinoma cell lines (SGC7901, HCT-116, HepG2 and A549) were evaluated by MTT assay; with good tumour inhibitory activities (79.50 ± 1.24%–50.04 ± 1.45%) against HepG2. 4a exhibited the best antitumour activity against A549 with % cell inhibition of 95.41 ± 0.67% at 100 µM. Likewise, 4s (70.13 ± 3.41%) and 4u (83.36 ± 1.70%) displayed stronger antineoplastic potencies against A549 than the standard, 5-fluorouracil (64.29 ± 2.09%) whereas 4a (93.33 ± 1.36%) and 4u (81.29 ± 2.32%) outperformed the reference (81.20 ± 0.08%) against HCT-116. SGC7901 showed lower % cell viabilities with 4u (8.02 ± 1.54%) and 4w (27.27 ± 2.38%). These results underscore the antiproliferative efficacies of L-prolinamides whilst exposing 4a and 4u as promising broad-spectrum anticancer agents. SAR studies are discussed.