Anti-inflammatory screening and molecular modeling of some novel coumarin derivatives

Coumarin and their derivatives have drawn much attention in the pharmacological and pharmaceutical fields due to their broad range and diverse biological activities. In the present work, starting from the 6-amino-7-hydroxy-4-methyl-2H-chromen-2-one, a series of 6-(substituted benzylamino)-7-hydroxy-4-methyl-2H-chromen-2-ones 1-11 was synthesized and assessed for their anti-inflammatory activity using the carrageenan-induced hind paw edema method. Compounds 2, 3, 4 and 9 showed significant (p < 0.001) reduction of rat paw edema volume after 1 h from the administration of the carrageenan compared to the reference drug, indomethacin. On the other hand, compounds 4 and 8 showed the highest anti-inflammatory activity, surpassing indomethacin after 3 h with 44.05% and 38.10% inhibition, respectively. Additionally, a molecular docking study was performed against the COX enzyme using the MOE 10.2010 software.