Cytotoxic and apoptotic effects of some (R)-carvone-isoxazoline derivatives on human fibrosarcoma and carcinoma cells: experimental evaluation for cytotoxicity, molecular docking and molecular dynamics studies.

This study aimed to analyze the cytotoxic and apoptotic effects of isoxazoline derivatives with monoterpene scaffold 9a-e in HT-1080 fibrosarcoma, MCF-7, and MDA-MB-231 breast carcinoma, and A-549 lung carcinoma. The cytotoxic effects data revealed that compounds 9a-e generally induced significant cell growth inhibition in all cell lines, with IC50 ranging from 10 to 30 µM. However, for compounds 9c and 9e, the IC50 reached a value of 100 µM in HT-1080 cells. Compounds 9a, 9b, and 9d could induce apoptosis in HT-1080 cells as demonstrated by Annexin-V labeling and Caspase-3/7 activity. The apoptotic effect was accompanied by cell cycle arrest in the S phase. Molecular docking and molecular dynamics confirmed the empirical assay results and confirmed the stability of the complex with the inhibition of the anti-apoptotic protein, leading to cancer cell death. Overall, these data suggest that the proposed isoxazoline derivatives may be potential candidates for further investigation to evaluate their efficacy and optimal use in cancer treatment.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

Investigating novel thiazolyl-indazole derivatives as scaffolds for SARS-CoV-2 MPro inhibitors.

COVID-19 is a global pandemic caused by infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Remdesivir, a SARS-CoV-2 RNA polymerase inhibitor, is the only drug to have received widespread approval for treatment of COVID-19. The SARS-CoV-2 main protease enzyme (MPro), essential for viral replication and transcription, remains an active target in the search for new treatments. In this study, the ability of novel thiazolyl-indazole derivatives to inhibit MPro is evaluated. These compounds were synthesized via the heterocyclization of phenacyl bromide with (R)-carvone, (R)-pulegone and (R)-menthone thiosemicarbazones. The binding affinity and binding interactions of each compound were evaluated through Schrödinger Glide docking, AMBER molecular dynamics simulations, and MM-GBSA free energy estimation, and these results were compared with similar calculations of MPro binding various 5-mer substrates (VKLQA, VKLQS, VKLQG) and a previously identified MPro tight-binder X77. From these simulations, we can see that binding is driven by residue specific interactions such as π-stacking with His41, and S/π interactions with Met49 and Met165. The compounds were also experimentally evaluated in a MPro biochemical assay and the most potent compound containing a phenylthiazole moiety inhibited protease activity with an IC50 of 92.9 â€‹µM. This suggests that the phenylthiazole scaffold is a promising candidate for the development of future MPro inhibitors.

New polysubstituted monoterpenic thiazolidinones: synthesis, spectroscopic and crystal structure studies.

The synthesis of three new polysubstituted monoterpenic thiazolidin-4-ones, namely (Z)-3-methyl-2-{(E)-[(1R,4R)-1,7,7-trimethylbicyclo[2.2.1]heptan-2-ylidene]hydrazinylidene}thiazolidin-4-one, C14H21N3OS (2), (2Z,5Z)-5-[(dimethylamino)methylidene]-2-{(E)-[(1R,4R)-1,7,7-trimethylbicyclo[2.2.1]heptan-2-ylidene]hydrazinylidene}thiazolidin-4-one, C16H24N4OS (3), and (2Z,5Z)-5-[(dimethylamino)methylidene]-3-methyl-2-{(E)-[(1R,4R)-1,7,7-trimethylbicyclo[2.2.1]heptan-2-ylidene]hydrazinylidene}thiazolidin-4-one, C17H26N4OS (4), is reported, starting from the corresponding thiosemicarbazones obtained from naturally occurring (R)-camphor. All the newly obtained thiazolidin-4-ones have been fully characterized by HRMS and 1H and 13C (1D and 2D) NMR spectroscopy. Two of them, i.e. 2 and 3, were identified by single-crystal X-ray crystallography, confirming the synthetic pathway and the spectroscopic analyses. In 3, there are two roughly identical molecules within the asymmetric unit with the same absolute configuration. These two molecules are linked through N-H...O hydrogen bonds, building an R22(8) graph-set motif.

Crystal structure of dimethyl 2-((2Z,5Z)-5-(2-meth-oxy-2-oxo-ethyl-idene)-2-{(E)-[2-methyl-5-(prop-1-en-2-yl)cyclo-hex-2-enyl-idene]hydrazinyl-idene}-4-oxo-thia-zolidin-3-yl)fumarate.

The crystal structure and the conformation of the title compound, C22H27N3O7S, were determined from the synthetic pathway and by X-ray analysis. This compound is a new 4-thia-zolidinone derivative prepared and isolated as pure product from thio-semicarbazone carvone. The mol-ecule is built up from an oxo-thia-zolidine ring tetra-substituted by a meth-oxy-oxo-ethyl-idene, a maleate, an oxygen and a cyclo-hexyl-idene-hydrazone. The cyclo-hexyl-idene ring is statistically disordered over two positions, resulting in an inversion of configuration for the substituted carbon.