Design, synthesis and anti-Tb evaluation of chalcone derivatives as novel inhibitors of InhA

A series of halogenated chalcone derivatives were designed and developed for anti-tubercular activity. Novel molecules were designed and in-silico screening were performed using admetSAR, SwissADME, and Osiris Property Explorer. From the initial filter the top 10 compounds were docked using the Autodock tool 1.5.6. and the binding energies of the docked compounds were higher than the standard drugs Isoniazid.and Ethionamide. Based on the in-silico and docking results, the top halogenated chalcones were synthesized and characterized using FT-IR, mass spectrometry, ¹H, and ¹³C NMR spectroscopy. The chalcones were further evaluated for anti-tubercular activity using MABA against the H37Rv strain. Among the series of compounds, DK12 and DK14 showed potent in-vitro activity, with MICs of 0.8 µg/ml, in comparison with 1.6 µg/ml of the first-line drug Isoniazid. Further molecular dynamics simulations studies for 100 ns revealed that the key interaction with TYR 158 were observed in both DK12 and DK14 in the InhA active site. The compound DK12 further showed significant interactions with PHE 149 and ARG 153 residues and is a hit molecule among the series. Further DK12 and DK14 does not show any significance toxicity. The compounds DK12 needs to be optimized and further investigation to be carried out against InhA.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.