5-((1H-imidazol-1-yl)methyl)quinolin-8-ol as potential antiviral SARS-CoV-2 candidate: Synthesis, crystal structure, Hirshfeld surface analysis, DFT and molecular docking studies

Evaluation of 1-vinyl-3-alkyl imidazolium-based ionic liquid monomers towards antibacterial activity: An in-silico & in-vitro study

In this study 1-vinyl-3-alkyl imidazolium-based ionic liquid monomers (ILs) with different alkyl chain lengths {R = hexyl (A), octyl (B) and decyl (C)} have been synthesized for antibacterial applications. The prepared ILs have been characterized using UV, FT-IR and NMR spectroscopy. The antibacterial activities of the synthesized ILs against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E. coli) have been examined by measuring their minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) and minimum bactericidal concentrations (MBCs). The results exhibit that these ILs have admirable antibacterial activities with MIC values range from < 1.2 to 12.2 μM for S. aureus and < 2.4 to 12.2 μM for E. coli. A notable dependence of antibacterial and antibiofilm efficacy on the alkyl chain length (ILC> ILB > ILA) has been observed. From in-silico evaluation, the binding energies of β-lactamase protein of S. aureus (PDB ID: 1GHP) are found to be -4.4, -4.6, -4.7 kcal/mol for IL A, IL B, and IL C. For dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) of S. aureus and E. coli the binding energies -4.6, -4.5, -5.3 kcal/mol and -5.3, -5.4, -5.6 kcal/mol have been noted for IL A, IL B, and IL C respectively. MD simulations (100 ns) have been performed to predict the stability and understand the binding mechanism of the docked complexes.

Chalcone-based imidazo[2,1-b]thiazole derivatives: synthesis, crystal structure, potent anticancer activity, and computational studies

In this work, two novel chalcone-based imidazothiazole derivatives ITC-1 and ITC-2 were synthesized and characterized by 1H NMR, 13C NMR and high-resolution mass spectrometry with electrospray ionization, and chemical structure of ITC-1 was confirmed by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Also, the anticancer activity of ITC-1 and ITC-2 was evaluated. First, antiproliferative activity tests were performed against cancer cells namely, human-derived breast adenocarcinoma (MCF-7), lung carcinoma (A-549), and colorectal adenocarcinoma (HT-29) cell lines, and mouse fibroblast healthy cell line (3T3-L1) by XTT assay. Afterward, mitochondrial membrane disruption (MMP), caspase activity, and apoptosis tests were performed on MCF-7 cells to elucidate the anticancer mechanism of action of the test compounds by flow cytometry analysis. XTT results revealed that both compounds exhibited a very high degree of antiproliferative effects on each tested cancer cell line with very low IC50 values while showing much lower antiproliferation on 3T3-L1 normal cells with much higher IC50 values. Besides, ITC-2 was determined to have a striking cytotoxic power competing with the chemotherapeutic drug carboplatin. Flow cytometry results demonstrated the mitochondrial-mediated apoptotic effects of both compounds through membrane disruption and multi-caspase activation in MCF-7 cells. Finally, molecular docking studies were performed to determine the structural understanding of the test compounds by their interactions on caspase-3 and DNA dodecamer enzymes, respectively. The interactions between the compound and the crystal structure were determined according to parameters such as free binding energies (ΔGBind), Glide score values, and determination of the active binding site. The obtained data suggest that ITC-1 and ITC-2 may be considered remarkable anticancer drug candidates. In addition to molecular docking via in silico approaches, the pharmacokinetic properties of compounds ITC-1 and ITC-2 were calculated using the Schrödinger 2021-2 Qikprop wizard.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

Stereoselective synthesis and X-ray structure determination of novel 1,2-dihydroquinolinehydrazonopropanoate derivatives

A novel series of 1,2-dihydroquinolinhydrazonopropanoate have been synthesized via a convenient aza-Michael addition reaction between hydrazinylquinolinones and ethyl propiolate in ethanol under refluxing temperature. The structures for all obtained products were confirmed with FTIR, NMR spectrums, as well as mass spectrometry. In addition, the monoclinic structure for compounds 8a, 8c, and 8d was also confirmed via X-ray crystallography analyses. The E-configuration for the obtained products was confirmed form the X-ray analysis. On the other hand, the crystal packing shows that the intermolecular and hydrogen bonds between atoms are parallel to the bc plan.

Identification of Withanolide G as a Potential Inhibitor of Rho-associated Kinase-2 Catalytic Domain to Confer Neuroprotection in Ischemic Stroke

Background:

Cerebral stroke is one of the leading causes of death and disability in a large number of patients globally. Brain damage in ischemic stroke is led by a complex cascade of events. The Rho-associated kinase-2 (ROCK2) has a significant role in cerebral vasospasm, vascular remodeling, and inflammation. It is activated in cerebral ischemia and its inhibition leads to a neuroprotective effect.

Objective:

The present study is designed to identify potential inhibitors of ROCK2 using a molecular docking approach.

Method:

We docked phytochemicals of Withania somnifera (WS) into the catalytic site of ROCK2 and compared results with inhibitor Y-27632. ADME and drug-likeness properties of WS phytochemicals were also analyzed.

Results:

Results suggest that 11 phytochemicals exhibited higher binding affinity toward the ROCK2 catalytic domain compared to the Y-27632 inhibitor. Among these phytochemicals, Withanolide G formed H-bonding and established hydrophobic contacts with key catalytic domain residues of ROCK2.

Conclusion:

Our findings suggest that Withanolide G has the potential to inhibit the action of ROCK2 and can be developed as a neurotherapeutic agent to combat cerebral ischemic insult.

Rational synthesis, biological screening of azo derivatives of chloro-phenylcarbonyl diazenyl hydroxy dipyrimidines/thioxotetrahydropyrimidines and their metal complexes

Herein, a new series of azo ligands HL-1 (5-(2-chloro-6-(phenylcarbonyl)phenyl)diazenyl)-6-hydroxydihydropyrimidines-2,4dione), HL-2 (5-(2-chloro-6-(phenylcarbonyl)phenyl)diazenyl)-6-hydroxy-2-thioxottetrahydropyrimidin-4one), HL-3 (5-(2,4-dichloro-6-(phenylcarbonyl)phenyl) diazenyl)-6-hydroxydihydropyrimidines-2,4dione), HL-4 (5-(2,4-dichloro-6-(phenylcarbonyl) phenyl)diazenyl)-6-hydroxy-2-thioxotetrahydropyrimidin-4one) and their metal complexes with Cu(II) & Ni(II) were synthesized successfully having excellent yield, in reproducible conditions and for structure elucidation different advance spectroscopic techniques (FTIR, ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR and Mass Spectrometry) were applied. In FTIR analysis, the absence of peak at 3450-3550 cm ^-1 due to -NH₂ and presence of a new peak of N=N at 1390-1520 cm^-1 confirmed synthesis of the ligands. The ¹H NMR spectra of azo ligands showed singlet peak at 11.5-13.5 ppm (Ar-OH) for hydroxyl group and -NH₂ signals disappearance of anilines at 4-5 ppm also gives strong indication for the synthesis of azo compounds. On complexation two most important peaks (M-O, M-N) appeared in all the metal chelates in the range of 400-600 cm^-1 which were not present in any of the ligands, confirmed the formation of complexes. Molecular ion peaks in mass spectra at 273, 388, 407 and 423 m/z value for ligands as well as for complexes at 803, 835, 871 and 904 m/z also give strong indication that proposed ligands and their metal complexes are produced successfully. Biological screening of the synthesized compounds were also carried out against different bacterial strains (E.coli, S.typhi, and B.subtilis), antifungal (C.albicans, A.niger, and C.glabrata) strains and antioxidant activity. From results it was observed that HL-4 and Cu complexes exhibited maximum inhibition against all bacterial and fungal strains as compared to other ligands and standard drug.

Ensemble Technique Coupled with Deep Transfer Learning Framework for Automatic Detection of Tuberculosis from Chest X-ray Radiographs

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease affecting humans' lungs and is currently ranked the 13th leading cause of death globally. Due to advancements in technology and the availability of medical datasets, automatic analysis and classification of chest X-rays (CXRs) into TB and non-TB can be a reliable alternative for early TB screening. We propose an automatic TB detection system using advanced deep learning (DL) models. A substantial part of a CXR image is dark, with no relevant information for diagnosis and potentially confusing DL models. In this work, the U-Net model extracts the region of interest from CXRs and the segmented images are fed to the DL models for feature extraction. Eight different convolutional neural networks (CNN) models are employed in our experiments, and their classification performance is compared based on three publicly available CXR datasets. The U-Net model achieves segmentation accuracy of 98.58%, intersection over union (IoU) of 93.10, and a Dice coefficient score of 96.50. Our proposed stacked ensemble algorithm performed better by achieving accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity values of 98.38%, 98.89%, and 98.70%, respectively. Experimental results confirm that segmented lung CXR images with ensemble learning produce a better result than un-segmented lung CXR images.

A Review of Potential Therapeutic Strategies for COVID-19

Coronavirus disease 2019 is a rather heterogeneous disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The ongoing pandemic is a global threat with increasing death tolls worldwide. SARS-CoV-2 belongs to lineage B β-CoV, a subgroup of Sarbecovirus. These enveloped, large, positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses are easily spread among individuals, mainly via the respiratory system and droplets. Although the disease has been gradually controlled in many countries, once social restrictions are relaxed the virus may rebound, leading to a more severe and uncontrollable situation again, as occurred in Shanghai, China, in 2022. The current global health threat calls for the urgent development of effective therapeutic options for the treatment and prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection. This systematic overview of possible SARS-CoV-2 therapeutic strategies from 2019 to 2022 indicates three potential targets: virus entry, virus replication, and the immune system. The information provided in this review will aid the development of more potent and specific antiviral compounds.

Synthesis, crystal structure, Hirshfeld surface analysis, DFT, molecular docking and molecular dynamic simulation studies of (E)-2,6-bis(4-chlorophenyl)-3-methyl-4-(2-(2,4,6-trichlorophenyl)hydrazono)piperidine derivatives

A novel drug to treat SARS-CoV-2 infections and hydroxyl chloroquine analogue, (E)-2,6-bis(4-chlorophenyl)-3-methyl-4-(2-(2,4,6-trichlorophenyl)hydrazono)piperidine (BCMTP) compound has been synthesized in one pot reaction. The novel compound BCMTP has been characterized by FT-IR, ¹H-NMR, ¹³C-NMR and single-crystal X-ray diffraction patterns. Crystal packing is stabilized by C8-H8A•••Cl10ⁱ, C41-H41•••Cl1ⁱⁱ and N1-H1A•••Cl6ⁱⁱⁱ intermolecular hydrogen bonds. From the geometrical parameters, it is observed that the piperidine ring adopts chair conformation. Hirshfeld surface analysis was carried out to quantify the interactions and an interaction energy analysis was done to study the interactions between pairs of molecules. The geometrical structure was optimized by density functional theory (DFT) method at B3LYP/6-31G (d, p) as the basic set. The smaller binding energy value provides the higher reactivity of BCMTP compound than hydroxyl chloroquine and was corrected by high electrophilic and low nucleophilic reactions. The stability and charge delocalization of the molecule were also considered by natural bond orbital (NBO) analysis. The HOMO-LUMO energies describe the charge transfer which takes place within the molecule. Molecular electrostatic potential has also been analysed. Molecular docking studies are implemented to analyse the binding energy of the BCMTP compound against standard drugs such as the crystal structure of ADP ribose phosphatase of NSP3 from SARS-CoV-2 in complex with MES and SARS-CoV-2 main protease with an unliganded active site (2019-nCoV, corona virus disease 2019, COVID-19) and found to be considered having better antiviral agents. Molecular dynamics simulation was performed for COVID-19 main protease (Mpro: 6WCF/6Y84) to understand the elements governing the inhibitory effect and the stability of interaction under dynamic conditions.

Potential applicability of Schiff bases and their metal complexes during COVID-19 pandemic – a review

The rapid growth and revolution in the area of emerging therapeutics has been able to save the life of millions of patients globally. Besides these developments, the microbes are consistently struggling for their own survival and hence becoming quite more sturdy and incurable to existing drugs. Covid-19 virus and Black Fungus are recent examples of failure of medical preparations and strength of these viruses beyond the imagination of medical practitioners. Henceforth the study has made an extensive survey of exiting literature on heterocyclic schiff bases and their transition metal complexes to look for their potential applicability as antimicrobial agents. The inherent physiognomies of the essential properties of these transition metal complexes including thermodynamic, kinetic and chelating are comparatively modifiable as per requirements. The study has found that the biological applications of these transition metal complexes are well suited to be used as antibacterial and antifungal agents.

Synthesis, Crystal Structure, Hirshfeld Surface Analysis and Docking Studies of a Novel Flavone–Chalcone Hybrid Compound Demonstrating Anticancer Effects by Generating ROS through Glutathione Depletion

The flavone–chalcone hybrid compound, (E)-6-bromo-3-(3-(2-methoxyphenyl)-3-oxoprop-1-enyl)-4H-chromen-4-one (3), was synthesized and its three dimensional structure was identified by X-ray crystallography. The compound 3, C19H13BrO4, was crystallized in the triclinic space group P-1 with the following cell parameters: a = 8.2447(6) Å; b = 8.6032(6) Å; c = 11.7826(7) Å; α = 92.456(2)°; β = 91.541(2)°; γ = 106.138(2)°; V = 801.42(9) Å3 and Z = 2. In an asymmetric unit, two molecules are packed by a pi–pi stacking interaction between two flavone rings that are 3.790 Å apart from each other. In the crystal, two hydrogen bonds form inversion dimers and these dimers are extended along the a axis by another hydrogen bond. Hirshfeld analysis revealed that the H–H (34.3%), O–H (19.2%) and C–H (16.7%) intermolecular contacts are the major dominants, while the C–O (6.7%) and C–C (6.5%) are minor dominants. When HCT116 cells were treated with various concentrations of hybrid compound 3, reduced cell viability and induced apoptosis in HCT116 cells were observed in a dose-dependent manner. The treatment of HCT116 colon cancer cells with compound 3, decreased the intracellular glutathione (GSH) levels and generated a reactive oxygen species (ROS). In silico docking experiments between the compound 3 and glutathione S-transferase (GST) containing glutathione were performed to confirm whether the compound 3 binds to glutathione. Their binding energy ranged from −6.6 kcal/mol to −5.0 kcal/mol, and the sulfur of glutathione is very close to the Michael acceptor regions of the compound 3, so it is expected that they would easily react with each other. Compound 3 may be a promising novel anticancer agent by ROS generation through glutathione depletion.