JOURNAL OF CHEMOMETRICS
Dharmendra Kumar Yadav, Imran Ahmad, Aparna Shukla, Feroz Khan, Arvind Singh Negi and Atul Gupta
DOI: 10.1002/cem.2606
In our prior studies, we reported some known antitubercular drugs (rifampicin and streptomycin) and newly synthesized chalcone derivatives (16–26) tested in vitro against Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv strain. Most of the tested compounds were efficient antimycobacterial agents showing minimum inhibitory concentration values ranging from 3.5 to 30 µg mL−1. In the present work, a quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) study has been performed on these active chalcone derivatives to correlate their chemical structures with their observed inhibiting activity against M. tuberculosis. A QSAR model that is able to correlate well the antitubercular activity with the chemical structures of active chalcone derivatives 16, 24, 25a, 25c, and 26 has been developed, which is potentially helpful in the design of novel and more potent antitubercular agents. The r2 and rCV2 of a newly derived QSAR model were 0.89 and 0.84, respectively. The QSAR study indicates that chemical properties, viz. heat of formation (kcal mol−1), lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy (eV), and amine, hydroxyl, and methyl groups counts, correlate well with the activity. In silico screening results for oral bioavailability and absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity compliance showed that compounds 25a, 25c, and 24 were found active similar to rifampicin and streptomycin. The docking study for the exploration of mechanism of action showed high binding affinity of active derivatives.
