Ricerc@Sapienza

The presence of stereogenic elements is a common feature in pharmaceutical compounds, and affording optically pure stereoisomers is a frequent issue in drug design. In this context, the study of the chiral molecular recognition mechanism fundamentally supports the understanding and optimization of chromatographic separations with chiral stationary phases.

A series of novel 2-substituted quinoline-4-carboxylic acids was synthesized by Doebner reaction starting from freely available protocatechuic aldehyde and vanillin precursors. Human dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (hDHODH) was recognised as a clear molecular target for these heterocycles. All compounds were also tested for their antiproliferative potential against three cancer cells (MCF-7, A549, A375) and one normal cell line (HaCaT) to evaluate the selective cytotoxicity.

The gout disease is spreading worldwide and its drug target is the human xanthine oxidase. Through this work, we investigated the inhibitory effect of the ten lanthanide(III) complexes of biologically active bis-coumarins on xanthine oxidase. We achieved molecular docking studies using GOLD software to study the formed interactions in the enzyme-inhibitor complex. The results confirm the inhibitory effect of the lanthanide complexes showing the best Nd(III) complex with IC50 of 12.91 nM. The docking results confirm this inhibition.

The newly synthesized coumarin derivative with dopamine, 3-(1-((3,4-dihydroxyphenethyl)amino)ethylidene)-chroman-2,4-dione, was completely structurally characterized by X-ray crystallography. It was shown that several types of hydrogen bonds are present, which additionally stabilize the structure. The compound was tested in vitro against different cell lines, healthy human keratinocyte HaCaT, cervical squamous cell carcinoma SiHa, breast carcinoma MCF7, and hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2.

Commercially available pesticides were examined as Mus musculus and Homo sapiens acetylcholinesterase (mAChE and hAChE) inhibitors by means of ligand-based (LB) and structure-based (SB) in silico approaches. Initially, the crystal structures of simazine, monocrotophos, dimethoate, and acetamiprid were reproduced using various force fields. Subsequently, LB alignment rules were assessed and applied to determine the inter synaptic conformations of atrazine, propazine, carbofuran, carbaryl, tebufenozide, imidacloprid, diuron, monuron, and linuron.