Solvents and their influence on electronic properties in IEFPCM solvation model, anticancer activity, and docking studies on (E)-2-((4-chlorobenzylidene) amino)phenol

Abstract

The Schiff base (E)-2-((4-chlorobenzylidene)amino)phenol (4CL2AM) has been synthesized from 4-chlorobenzaldehyde and 2-aminophenol. Spectroscopic techniques like FTIR, Raman, UV, fluorescence, and NMR were used to characterize the synthesized compound. The experimental data well matched with the DFT method (B3LYP/cc-pVDZ basis set). The frontier molecular orbital (FMO), molecular electrostatic potential (MEP), and electronic spectra (UV–visible) analysis were conducted on three different solvents such as gas, DMSO, and water. The frontier molecular orbital (FMO) analysis calculated the HOMO-LUMO energy gap as 4.0109 eV, 4.0406 eV, and 4.0411 eV for the gas phase, DMSO, and water respectively. Molecular electrostatic potential (MEP), localized orbital locator (LOL), and electron localize function (ELF) analysis revealed positions of localized and delocalized orbitals as well as electrophilic and nucleophilic attack sites. The natural bond orbital analysis (NBO) predicted highest stabilization energy was 33.37 kcal/mol. The locations of the covalent and non-covalent interactions were investigated by density overlaps region indicator (DORI), interaction region indicator (IRI), and noncovalent interaction (NCI) analysis. Drug likeness and ADME analysis were investigated. In vitro, anticancer activity studies revealed against MCF-7 breast cancer cell lines. In the molecular docking study, the predicted lowest binding energy is −5.77 kcal/mol for the 6NLV-4CL2AM system.