Integrated computational investigation to develop molecular design of quinazoline scaffold as promising inhibitors of plasmodium lactate dehydrogenase

Structure- and ligand-based drug design methods for the modeling of antimalarial agents: a review of updates from 2012 onwards

Malaria still persists as one of the deadliest infectious disease having a huge morbidity and mortality affecting the higher population of the world. Structure and ligand-based drug design methods like molecular docking and MD simulations, pharmacophore modeling, QSAR and virtual screening are widely used to perceive the accordant correlation between the antimalarial activity and property of the compounds to design novel dominant and discriminant molecules. These modeling methods will speed-up antimalarial drug discovery, selection of better drug candidates for synthesis and to achieve potent and safer drugs. In this work, we have extensively reviewed the literature pertaining to the use and applications of various ligand and structure-based computational methods for the design of antimalarial agents. Different classes of molecules are discussed along with their target interactions pattern, which is responsible for antimalarial activity. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Three New Chitosan Schiff Base Derivatives

Recently, chemical modifications of chitosan (CS) have attracted the attention of scientific researchers due to its wide range of applications. In this research, chitin (CH) was extracted from the scales of Cyprinus carpio fish and converted to CS by three chemical steps: (i) demineralization, (ii) deprotonation, and (iii) deacetylation. The degree (measured as a percentage) of deacetylation (DD %) was calculated utilizing the acid-base titration method. The structure of CS was characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Three new CS Schiff bases (CSSBs) (CS-P1, CS-P2, and CS-P3) were synthesized via coupling of CS with 2-chloroquinoline-3-carbaldehyde, quinazoline-6-carbaldehyde, and oxazole-4-carbaldehyde, respectively. The newly prepared derivatives were verified, structurally, by nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H and ¹³C NMR) and FT-IR spectroscopy. Antimicrobial activity was evaluated for the prepared compounds against both "Gram-negative" and "Gram-positive" bacteria, namely, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumonia, Staphylococcus aureus, and Streptococcus mutans, in addition to two kinds of fungi, Candida albicans and Aspergillus fumigates. Cytotoxicity of the synthesized CSSBs was evaluated via a MTT screening test. The results indicated a critical activity increase of the synthesized compound rather than CS generally tested bacteria and fungi and the absence of cytotoxic activity. These findings suggested that these new CSSBs are novel biomaterial candidates with enhanced antibacterial and nontoxic characteristics for applications in areas of both biology and medicine.