Synthesis, anti-HIV activity, molecular modeling study and QSAR of new designed 2-(2-arylidenehydrazinyl)-4-arylthiazoles

Abstract

Taking into consideration the eminence of 1,3-thiazoles in medicinal chemistry and in a view of procuring more pronounced biological contour, the synthesis of 2-(2-arylidenehydrazinyl)-4-arylthiazoles 6–43 was made possible by the cyclization reaction of thiosemicarbazones and α-bromoacetophenones. The thiosemicarbazones 5a-m were in turn synthesized from substituted benzaldehydes or acetophenones and thiosemicarbazide. Optimization of the reaction conditions was carried out in order to attain the target molecules in good yields. All the new compounds were evaluated in vitro for their antiviral activity against the replication of HIV-1 and HIV-2 in MT4 cells using a MTT assay. Screening results indicated that compounds 32–34 are the only compounds in the series inhibiting HIV-1 and HIV-2 replication in cell cultures with IC50 of >2.71, >2.19 and > 1.71 μM, respectively. The molecular docking of compounds 32 and 34 with some amino acids of human immunodeficiency virus reverse transcriptase (HIV RT) were also studied. The preliminary quantum structure-activity relationship (QSAR) among the newly synthesized congeners was obtained by two methods, Multiple Linear Regression (MRL) and Genetic Function Approximation (GFA).