Synthesis of novel ketene dithioacetals via one pot reaction: Molecular modelling in-silico admet studies and antimicrobial activity

Abstract

A simple and efficient method for the synthesis of fifteen novel ketene dithioacetals (2-(6-amino5-cyano-4-aryl-4H-1,3-dithiin-2-ylidene) malononitrile) via a one-pot three-component reaction of activated methylene group malononitrile with carbon disulfide in the presence of arylidene malononitriles were reported. The effects of LiOH.H2O as a base at different concentrations have been investigated and can provide products in good yields at 40-50ºC temperature (54-89%). All the synthesized ketene dithioacetals compounds (MCB1-MCB15) were checked for favorable pharmacokinetic parameters along with toxicities which are based on drug-likeness explained by Lipinski’s rule of five by Med chem designer software correlated with that of pkCSM online tool. Explorations of synthesized ketene dithioacetals compounds for the antimicrobial study were found to be effective towards Staphylococcus aureus (MCB5 and MCB13) with a zone of inhibition at 26mm and 22mm which is compared to that of standard ciprofloxacin (26mm). This made our study to explore the inhibition mechanism with the help of molecular docking studies with possible binding energies (-6.4 to-8.9 kJ/mol) by pyrx 0.8 software to represent a good prediction of interactions between the ligand and protein (2XCT). Further evaluation of druggability and ADMET predictions compounds MCB5 and MCB13 were found to be effective. Based on the in-vitro and in-silico studies a series of ketene dithioacetals compounds may be helpful for further studying SAR and designing more potent antimicrobials.