Synthesis, Molecular Docking Studies and Biological Evaluation of N-Acylarylhydrazones as Anti-Inflammatory Agents

In the present work a series of N'-arylidene-2-(benzamido)-3-(naphthalen-2-yl)acrylohydrazides were synthesized by refluxing the intermediate 2-(benzamido)-3-(naphthalen-2-yl)acrylohydrazide with various substituted benzaldehyde in the presence of glacial acetic acid. The intermediate 2-(benzamido)-3-(naphthalen-2-yl)acrylohydrazide 2 was prepared by stirring 4-((naphthalen-2-yl)methylene)-2-phenyloxazol-5(4H)-one with hydrazine hydrate in the presence of absolute ethanol. The chemical structures of the compounds were established by IR, ¹H NMR and mass spectral data. All the compounds were evaluated for anti-inflammatory (in vivo, in vitro) activity and performed docking against COX-2. The compounds 3a, 3c and 3o showed good inhibition of COX-2 in in vitro studies (0.75 μM, 0.5 μM and 0.7 μM as IC50, respectively). The compounds 3c, 3e and 3f were found to be more active than standard drug phenylbutazone at equidose. Molecular docking studies showed that compound 3 m exhibited good binding affinity against COX-2 with docking score 9.328 kcal/mol, when compared to the standard celecoxib.