In Silico Design and Synthesis of Targeted Curcumin Derivatives as Xanthine Oxidase Inhibitors.

Abstract

Curcumin is a well-known pharmacophore and some of its derivatives are shown to target xanthine oxidase (XO) to alleviate disorders caused by the excess production of uric acid. Curcumin based derivatives were designed, synthesized and evaluated for their antioxidant and xanthine oxidase inhibitory potential. In this report, we designed and synthesized two series of curcumin derivatives modified by inserting pyrazole and pyrimidine ring to central keto group. The synthesized compounds were evaluated for their antioxidant and xanthine oxidase inhibitory potential. Results showed that pyrazole analogues of curcumin produced excellent XO inhibitory potency with the IC50 values varying from 06.255 µM to 10.503 µM. Among pyrimidine derivatives compound CU3a1 having ortho nitro substitution exhibited more potent xanthine oxidase inhibitory activity than any other curcumin derivative of this series. Curcumin derivatives CU5b1, CU5b2, CU5b3, and CU3a1 showed a potent inhibitory activity against xanthine oxidase along with good antioxidant potential.