Synthesis, biological evaluation and molecular docking studies of novel quinazolinones as antitubercular and...

In the present study, a series of novel quinazolinone hybrids, viz. triazepino-quinazolinones 4, thiazolo-triazolo-quinazolinones 7 and triazolo-quinazolinones 8 have been synthesized from the key intermediate 3-(substituted phenyl)-2-hydrazinoquinazolin-4(3H)-ones 3. All the newly synthesized compounds were characterized by means of spectral (IR, ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR) and elemental analysis. The target compounds were biologically screened for their in vitro antimicrobial and antitubercular activities against pathogenic strain. The results of bioassay demonstrated that some of the compounds exhibited pronounced antimicrobial activity comparable to that of standard drugs tested under similar conditions. Compounds 4c, 4e, 7e and 8b showed relatively very good inhibitory activity against pathogenic bacteria with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 2.6 μg/mL, 5.2 μg/mL, while the rest of the compounds showed moderate activity. Compounds 4c and 8b were found to be nearly equipotent with ciprofloxacin against P. aeruginosa with MIC 5.2 μg/mL, while compound 8b was more potent against pathogenic bacteria S. aureus. It is very remarkable that four compounds, 4c, 4e, 7e and 8b showed pronounced antifungal activity against selected pathogenic fungi, A. niger, C. albicans with MIC 2.6 μg/mL and 5.2 μg/mL. The antitubercular activity of synthesized compounds reveal that compound 8b showed better activity than the other compounds with a MIC of 5.2 μg/mL against M. tuberculosis (H₃₇Rv). Molecular docking studies of the compounds were performed to rationalize the inhibitory properties of these compounds and results showed that these compounds have good binding energy and better binding affinity within the active pocket, thus these compounds may be considered as potent inhibitors towards selective targets.