Novel derivatives of salicylanilide: Synthesis, characterization, PPO inhibitory activity and cytotoxicity

•Novel derivatives of salicylanilid was designed and synthesis.•The structure of compound 4q was determined by single X-ray diffraction.•4q exhibited potent PPO inhibition activity in vitro.•4q acted as a competitive inhibitor of PPO.•4q at 50 µM showed no significant cytotoxicity for four tested human normal cell lines.