Relationship between physicochemical properties and herbicidal activity of 1,2,5-oxadiazole N-oxide derivatives.

The relationship between the herbicidal activity of a number of novel 1,2,5-oxadiazole N-oxides and some physicochemical properties potentially related with this bioactivity, such as polarity, molecular volume, proton acceptor ability, lipophilicity, and reduction potential were studied. The semiempirical molecular orbital method AM1 was used to calculate theoretical descriptors such as dipolar moment, molecular volume, Mulliken's charge and the octanol/water partition coefficients (log P(o/w)). The values of the reduction potentials (E(r)) were obtained by cyclic voltammetry. In addition, the retention factors (log (k'w)) on a reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography(RP-HPLC) column in pure aqueous mobile phases were measured for several N-oxide derivatives. The log (k'w) values show good correlation with the calculated values of log P(o/w), showing that the chromatographic parameter can be used as lipophilicity descriptor for these compounds. The multiple regression analysis between the descriptors for the N-oxide derivatives and the herbicide activity indicate that the variance in the biological activity can be explained by changes in the lipophilicity and in the reduction potential.

Determination of lipophilic descriptors of antihelmintic 6,7-diaryl-pteridine derivatives useful for bioactivity predictions.

The liquid chromatographic retention factors extrapolated to pure water, k'(w), for several 6,7-diaryl-pteridine derivatives in both an octadecylsilane (ODS) and an immobilized artificial membrane column (IAM.PC.DD2), using acetonitrile-aqueous buffer pH = 7.45 as mobile phase, were obtained. The logarithms of the k'(w) values in the IAM.PC.DD2 column, log k'(w) (IAM), show good correlation with the calculated values of the octanol-water partition coefficients, log P(o/w), showing that the chromatographic parameter can be used as lipophilicity descriptor for the studied pteridines. However, interactions other than the lipophilic ones seem to be involved in the ODS column. Previous studies have shown that pteridines have antihelmintic properties. In spite of the complexity of the studied biological system as compared with the chromatographic one, good correlation between the descriptors obtained in the IAM column and biological activity (expressed as the log of the inhibitory concentration required to obtain up to 50% in the reduction of population growth of nematodes, log IC(50)) was observed.

Spectroscopic and theoretical studies of derivatives of 1,6- and 1,7-naphthyridines.

The solvatochromism in 8-hydroxy-1,6-naphthyridin-5(6H)-one-7-carboxylic acid methyl ester (1), 5-hydroxy-1,7-naphthyridin-8(7H)-one-6-carboxylic acid methyl ester (2), and 4-hydroxy-2-methyl-1(2H)-isoquinolone-3-carboxylic acid methyl ester (3), has been studied in solvents of different polarity and hydrogen bond donor (HBD) and hydrogen bond acceptor (HBA) ability. The relative stabilities of isomers for these naphthyridine derivatives and their interaction with the solvent are reported. Two intramolecular hydrogen-bonded structures contribute to the ground state of compound 1. Temperature effects on the absorption bands were recorded to analyse the possible equilibrium between covalent and zwitterionic forms. The formation of zwitterionic species was observed only in HBD solvents, from which is inferred the solvent assistance in the proton transference. AM1 and PM3 semi-empirical calculations were used in support of the proposed interpretations.