Novel biphenyl ester derivatives as tyrosinase inhibitors: Synthesis, crystallographic, spectral analysis and molecular docking studies

Abstract

Biphenyl-based compounds are clinically important for the treatments of hypertension and inflammatory, while many more are under development for pharmaceutical uses. In the present study, a series of 2-([1,1'-biphenyl]-4-yl)-2-oxoethyl benzoates, 2(a-q), and 2-([1,1'- biphenyl]-4-yl)-2-oxoethyl pyridinecarboxylate, 2(r-s) were synthesized by reacting 1-([1,1'- biphenyl]-4-yl)-2-bromoethan-1-one with various carboxylic acids using potassium carbonate in dimethylformamide at ambient temperature. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction studies revealed a more closely packed crystal structure can be produced by introduction of biphenyl moiety. Five of the compounds among the reported series exhibited significant antityrosinase activities, in which 2p, 2r and 2s displayed good inhibitions which are comparable to standard inhibitor kojic acid at concentrations of 100 and 250 μg/mL. The inhibitory effects of these active compounds were further confirmed by computational molecular docking studies and the results revealed the primary binding site is active-site entrance instead of inner copper binding site which acted as the secondary binding site.