Novel indan-1,3-dione derivatives: Design, green synthesis, effect against tomato damping-off disease caused by Fusarium oxysporum and in silico molecular docking study

Abstract

An effective method for synthesizing series of twenty-two new compounds 1, 2a,b, 3, 4a,b, 5a-e, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13a-d, 15a,b was performed starting from reaction of 1,2,3-indenetrione thiourea, and ethyl cyanoacetate under microwave irradiation and / or 2-(1,3-dioxo-1H-inden-2(3H)-ylidene) hydrazine carbothioamide with acetic anhydride. Chemical structure of the obtained products has been established by spectroscopic techniques including FTIR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, DEPT-135, and mass spectroscopy. The designed new compounds have been successfully examined in-vitro for their antifungal activities. The relation between the structure of the synthesized compounds and their activity against tomato damping-off disease caused by Fusarium oxysporum fungi was studied and favourable results were obtained. The antifungal studies indicated that compounds 1, 7, 4a and 5a-d exerted the highest antifungal activities, while 3 and 4b recorded the lowest effect. The obtained results confirmed the possibility of the application of ethyl 6′-amino-1,3-dioxo-2′-thioxo-1,2′,3,3′-tetrahydro-1′H-spiro[indene-2,4′-pyrimidine]-5′-carboxylate 1 as a new effective regulator of the vegetative growth of tomatoes. The molecular docking analysis was performed within succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) as a target enzyme in order to rationalize the promising findings obtained for the active compounds 1, 2a,b, 5a-d, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, and 13a.