Design, synthesis and biochemical evaluation of novel 2-amino-3-(7-methoxybenzo[d][1,3]dioxol-5-yl)propanoic acid using Horseradish peroxidase (HRP) activity, cellular ROS inhibition and molecular docking study

Abstract In this paper, we report the design, synthesis and biochemical evaluation of 2-amino-3-(7-methoxybenzo[d][1,3]dioxol-5-yl)propanoic acid 9, a myristicin derivative, from cheap and available vanillin as starting material. Compound 9 is identified as a potential precursor of natural brasiliamide derivatives. All the products are fully characterized. The crystal structure of the intermediate diethyl 2-acetamido-2-((7-methoxybenzo[d][1,3]dioxol-5-yl)methyl)malonate 16, a precursor of this amino acid, is obtained and presented. The interactions stabilizing the crystal packing of 16 were deeply analyzed by considering first the supramolecular stacking and finally, by analyzing the contacts descriptors on the Hirshfeld surface, the molecular fingerprint and the intermolecular energy. Different biochemical properties of the desired amino acid 9 and its selected precursors are investigated. In DPPH test, 9 showed the best anti-radical activity (IC50 = 80.91 μM). The enzymatic, HRP-H2O2/L012, chemiluminescence assay reveals excellent inhibitory effect on the peroxidase activity and a good antioxidant activity of all the tested compounds with the best activity for 9 (IC50 = 0.36 μM). The anti-peroxidase activity observed for compound 9 was confirmed by molecular docking exploration that allows to identify interactions in the HRP-9 complex. Docking results showed that 9 interacts with catalytic and active site residues, especially with Arg38, His42, Ser73, Phe68 and Pro139. Moreover, the inhibition of ROS production by activated HL-60 cells was moderately obtained with compounds 9 and 13. The MTS cell viability test reveals that all tested compounds, except myristicin aldehyde 13, were not cytotoxic indicating that the observed inhibition of ROS production of activated HL-60 cells was not due to cells death. Finally, physicochemical and ADME-Tox predictions suggested that compound 9 could be considered as promising drug candidate.