Investigation of in vitro and in silico effects of some novel carbazole Schiff bases on human carbonic anhydrase isoforms I and II

Abstract

Carbonic anhydrases (CAs, EC4.2.1.1) are metalloenzymes that catalyse reversible hydration reaction of carbon dioxide to bicarbonate and protons. In recent years, there has been a great interest in inhibitors/activators of carbonic anhydrase isoenzymes. Therefore, we investigated the effects of four different carbazole Schiff base derivatives, which are believed to have a potential to be used as a drug, on human carbonic anhydrase (hCA) isoenzymes I and II under in vitro conditions. The IC50 values of carbazole Schiff base derivatives were found to be in the range of 32.09–151.2 μM for hCA isoenzyme I and 21.82–40.54 μM for hCA isoenzyme II. Among all compounds, (E)-3-(((9-Octyl-9H-carbazole-3-yl)imino)methyl)benzene-1,2-diol (C3) had the strongest inhibitory effect on hCA isoenzyme II. It was determined that 2,3,4-trimethoxy and 4-hydroxy phenyl containing carbazole compounds have selective inhibition against hCA II isoenzyme. Docking studies were performed against hCA I and II receptors using induced-fit docking method. The compounds had affinity scores varying from −7.74 ± 0.27 to −6.27 ± 0.07 kcal/mol for hCA I and from −8.04 ± 0.17 to −7.27 ± 0.18 kcal/mol for hCA II. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma