Seven new structures of an isoxazole moiety containing ferrocene derivatives (3a–3g) were firstly synthesized and characterized by 1H NMR, 13C NMR, ESI-MS. Subsequently, their in vitro anticancer activity against A549, HCT116 and MCF-7 cell lines was preliminarily evaluated using the MTT method. Among them, 3d exhibited a wide spectrum and the most potent anticancer activity against A549 and HCT116 cell lines (IC50s: 0.747 and 3.65 nM, respectively) as compared with the reference drug gefitinib (IC50s: 17.90 and 21.55 μM, respectively). 3d can be seen as the best candidate for development of anticancer drugs.
