Vitamin D Deficiency as a Risk Factor for Diabetes and Poor Glycemic Control in Saudi Arabia: A Systematic Review.

This systematic review aims to investigate the published literature on vitamin D deficiency (VDD) as a risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) or affecting the glycemic state of patients in Saudi Arabia. PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and the Cochrane Library were systematically searched to include the relevant literature. Rayyan QCRI (Rayyan Systems Inc., Cambridge, MA) was used throughout this systematic approach. Eleven studies were included with a total of 4229 patients. Three studies demonstrated that VDD was a significant risk factor for developing T2DM, and one reported that it increased insulin resistance. However, two studies found that VDD did not affect the incidence of T2DM and did not affect the insulin sensitivity or glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels in patients with T2DM. This systematic review demonstrated that VDD significantly increases the risk of developing T2DM and negatively affects the glycemic state of patients with T2DM among Saudi patients. Due to the many populations examined, vitamin D chemical compositions, doses, and supplementation periods, interventional research has produced contradictory and ambiguous results. Additional research is necessary, particularly in individuals with a high risk of developing diabetes (impaired fasting glucose and/or glucose tolerance, possibly without obesity). These individuals may be the primary benefactors of vitamin D's benefits in preventing T2DM, according to the hypothesized mechanism of action for the vitamin.

Insights on the Nutritional Profiling of Cantaloupe (Cucumis melo L.) via 1-Naphthalene Acetic Acid.

The nutritional components of cantaloupe, including vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and dietary fiber, contribute to overall health, improved immunity, hydration, and protection against chronic diseases. This study was conducted to investigate the influence of different concentrations (0 (control), 100, 150, and 200 ppm) of 1-naphthalene acetic acid (1-NAA) on the nutritional components of the cantaloupe (Cucumis melo L. Var. Super White Honey). All the studied treatments were applied twice at the 2nd and 4th leaf stages. The applied concentrations of 1-NAA significantly improved the sex expression and fruit yield attributes. Different nutritional components like proximate contents, minerals, vitamins, selected fatty acids, and amino acids were analyzed. The results showed that the maximum moisture content, proteins, carbohydrates, ash, and energy were recorded with 100 ppm. The higher lipids were recorded during the supplementation of 150 ppm. Significantly greater fibers were recorded using 200 ppm. Regarding minerals, 100 ppm was found to be the best as it increased calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), potassium (K), sodium (Na), phosphorous (P), manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), and zinc (Zn). Vitamins were also found to be the maximum with 100 ppm, including vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, and vitamin K. Total selected fatty acids and amino acids were also found significantly greater in the fruits administered 100 ppm.

Investigation on the use of ensemble learning and big data in crop identification.

The agriculture sector in Egypt faces several problems, such as climate change, water storage, and yield variability. The comprehensive capabilities of Big Data (BD) can help in tackling the uncertainty of food supply occurs due to several factors such as soil erosion, water pollution, climate change, socio-cultural growth, governmental regulations, and market fluctuations. Crop identification and monitoring plays a vital role in modern agriculture. Although several machine learning models have been utilized in identifying crops, the performance of ensemble learning has not been investigated extensively. The massive volume of satellite imageries has been established as a big data problem forcing to deploy the proposed solution using big data technologies to manage, store, analyze, and visualize satellite data. In this paper, we have developed a weighted voting mechanism for improving crop classification performance in a large scale, based on ensemble learning and big data schema. Built upon Apache Spark, the popular DB Framework, the proposed approach was tested on El Salheya, Ismaili governate. The proposed ensemble approach boosted accuracy by 6.5%, 1.9%, 4.4%, 4.9%, 4.7% in precision, recall, F-score, Overall Accuracy (OA), and Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC) metrics respectively. Our findings confirm the generalization of the proposed crop identification approach at a large-scale setting.

Can deficit irrigations be an optimum solution for increasing water productivity under arid conditions? A case study on wheat plants.

Water scarcity is of growing concern in many countries around the world, especially within the arid and semi-arid zones. Accordingly, rationalizing irrigation water has become an obligation to achieve the sustainable developmental goals of these countries. This may take place via using deficit irrigation which is long thought to be an effective strategy to save and improve water productivity. The current study is a trial to evaluate the pros and cons of using 50 and 75 % of the irrigation requirements (IR) of wheat (deficit irrigations) versus 100 %IR, while precisely charting changes in wheat growth parameters, antioxidant enzymes in plant shoots and the overall nutritional status of plants (NPK contents). Accordingly, a field experiment was conducted for two successive seasons, followed a split-plot design in which deficit irrigations (two irrigations to achieve 50 % of the irrigations requirements (IR), three irrigations to attain 75 % IR, and four irrigations to fulfill 100 % IR) were placed in main plots while four different studied wheat cultivars were in subplots. Results obtained herein indicate that deficit irrigations led to significant reductions in growth parameters and productivity of all wheat cultivars, especially when using 50 % IR. It also decreased NPK contents within plant shoots while elevated their contents of proline, peroxidase, and catalase enzymes. On the other hand, this type of irrigation decreased virtual water content (VWC, the amount of water used in production on ton of wheat grains). Stress tolerance index (STI), and financial revenues per unit area were also assessed. The obtained values of grain productivity, STI, VWC and financial revenues were weighted via PCA analyses, and then introduced in a novel model to estimate the efficiency of deficit irrigations (ODEI) whose results specified that the overall efficiency decreased as follows: 50 %IR < 75 %IR < 100 %IR. In conclusion, deficit irrigation is not deemed appropriate for rationalizing irrigation water while growing wheat on arid soils.

Development of Novel Isatin-Tethered Quinolines as Anti-Tubercular Agents against Multi and Extensively Drug-Resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

We describe the design and synthesis of two isatin-tethered quinolines series (Q6a-h and Q8a-h), in connection with our research interest in developing novel isatin-bearing anti-tubercular candidates. In a previous study, a series of small molecules bearing a quinoline-3-carbohydrazone moiety was developed as anti-tubercular agents, and compound IV disclosed the highest potency with MIC value equal to 6.24 µg/mL. In the current work, we adopted the bioisosteric replacement approach to replace the 3,4,5-trimethoxy-benzylidene moiety in the lead compound IV with the isatin motif, a privileged scaffold in the TB drug discovery, to furnish the first series of target molecules Q6a-h. Thereafter, the isatin motif was N-substituted with either a methyl or benzyl group to furnish the second series Q8a-h. All of the designed quinoilne-isatin conjugates Q6a-h and Q8a-h were synthesized and then biologically assessed for anti-tubercular actions towards drug-susceptible, MDR, and XDR strains. Superiorly, the N-benzyl-bearing compound Q8b possessed the best activities against the examined M. tuberculosis strains with MICs equal 0.06, 0.24, and 1.95 µg/mL, respectively.

Assessment of land suitability using a soil-indicator-based approach in a geomatics environment.

The study aims to develop new approach for soil suitability evaluation, Based on the fact that choosing the proper agricultural sites is a requirement for good ergonomic and financial feasibility. The AHP included a selection of different criteria used for analysis and categorized according to their usefulness in relation to the growth conditions/requirements of the selected crops. Lithology, soil physicochemical, topography (slope and elevation), climate (temperature and rainfall), and irrigation water were the main criteria selected for the study. The study indicated that the area is suitable for agricultural use, taking into account the quality of the water used to maintain the quality of the soil. According to the FAO the suitability result was for S1 (0.71%), S2 (19.81%), S3 (41.46%), N1 (18.33%) and N2 (19.68%) of the total area. While the results obtained from the new approach for the study 9.51%, 30.82%, 40.12% and 19.54 for very high, high, moderate, low and very low suitability respectively, Taking into account that the constraints units of FAO is located in very low suitability class with 0.69% of the total area which Not valid for crop production due to some restrictions. The findings of the study will help narrow the area to the suitable sites that may further be sustainably used for annual and/or perennial crops. The proposed approach has high potential in applications for assessing land conditions and can facilitate optimal planning for agricultural use.

Remdesivir analog as SARS-CoV-2 polymerase inhibitor: virtual screening of a database generated by scaffold replacement.

By the end of 2019, a novel strain of the corona viral family named SARS-CoV-2 emerged in Wuhan, China and started to spread worldwide causing one of the most dangerous lethal pandemics. Researchers utilized various reported inhibitors and drug databases for virtual screening analysis against this novel strain. Later on, they succeeded to fish and repurpose remdesivir, an antiviral nucleotide analogue that inhibits RNA polymerase of the Ebola virus, as a promising candidate against SARS-CoV-2. In this study, we used the interactions of the co-crystallized metabolite of remdesivir with SARS-CoV-2 RdRp isozyme (PDB 7BV2) to design an analog with potential extra activity. This design was based on a scaffold replacement of a pyrrolotriazine moiety. This design was guided by a generated structure-based pharmacophore. The database generated from scaffold replacement was subjected to molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations within the active site of SARS-CoV-2 RdRp (PDB 7BV2) to suggest HA-130383 and HA-130384 as potential lead compounds.

Image Classification of Wheat Rust Based on Ensemble Learning.

Rust is a common disease in wheat that significantly impacts its growth and yield. Stem rust and leaf rust of wheat are difficult to distinguish, and manual detection is time-consuming. With the aim of improving this situation, this study proposes a method for identifying wheat rust based on ensemble learning (WR-EL). The WR-EL method extracts and integrates multiple convolutional neural network (CNN) models, namely VGG, ResNet 101, ResNet 152, DenseNet 169, and DenseNet 201, based on bagging, snapshot ensembling, and the stochastic gradient descent with warm restarts (SGDR) algorithm. The identification results of the WR-EL method were compared to those of five individual CNN models. The results show that the identification accuracy increases by 32%, 19%, 15%, 11%, and 8%. Additionally, we proposed the SGDR-S algorithm, which improved the f1 scores of healthy wheat, stem rust wheat and leaf rust wheat by 2%, 3% and 2% compared to the SGDR algorithm, respectively. This method can more accurately identify wheat rust disease and can be implemented as a timely prevention and control measure, which can not only prevent economic losses caused by the disease, but also improve the yield and quality of wheat.

Insights into the effect of elaborating coumarin-based aryl enaminones with sulfonamide or carboxylic acid functionality on carbonic anhydrase inhibitory potency and selectivity.

Recently, different mechanisms for inhibition of carbonic anhydrases (CAs) have been reported, such as the classical zinc-binding (exerted by sulfonamides and carboxylic acids) as well as occluding the entrance of the CA active site (exerted by coumarins). In this manuscript, we studied the effect of combining the pharmacopheric parts responsible for these two mechanisms on CA inhibitory potency and selectivity through the design and synthesis of novel coumarins tethered with the zinc-binding sulfonamide (5a-f, 11a-b and 13a-b) or carboxylic acid (7a-f) groups. In addition, another set of coumarin derivatives (9a-b) with no zinc-binding group (ZBG) was designed to act as non-classical CA inhibitors. The synthesized coumarins were examined for their inhibitory activities towards four hCA isoforms I, II, IX and XII. Coumarin sulfonamides (5a-f, 11a-b and 13a-b) effectively inhibited both tumor-associated hCA IX (KIs: 8.9-133.5 nM) and hCA XII (KIs: 3.4-42.9 nM) isoforms, whereas coumarin carboxylic acids (7a-f) weakly affected hCA IX (KIs: 0.49-11.2 µM) and hCA XII (KIs: 0.51-10.1 µM) isoforms. The coumarin based inhibitors featuring zinc-binding sulfonamide or carboxylic acid group achieved low to moderate hCA IX/XII selectivity. Interestingly, the ZBG-free coumarin derivatives (9a-b) emerged not only as effective hCA IX (KIs = 93.3 and 63.8 nM, respectively) and hCA XII (KIs = 85.7 and 72.1 nM, respectively) inhibitors, but also as a highly hCA IX/XII selective inhibitors over the off-target hCA I/II isoforms (SIs > 1000). Coumarin 9a was further evaluated for its anti-proliferative effect on MCF-7 and PANC-1 cancer cell lines, as well as its effect on the cell cycle and apoptosis towards MCF-7 cell line.

A patent review of anticancer CDK2 inhibitors (2017-present).

INTRODUCTION: The success of the CDK4/6 inhibitor Ibrance™ (Palbociclib) as an anticancer agent inspired and directed more efforts toward the discovery of selective cyclin-dependent kinase (CDKs) inhibitors. CDK2 is a member of the CDKs family that plays an important role in regulating the progression of cells into both S- and M-phases of the cell cycle. Studies suggest that overexpression of CDK2 may be implicated in tumor growth in cancer. AREAS COVERED: This review covers the patent literature of CDK2 inhibitors published between 2017 and 2021. We searched the online databases of the European Patent Office, American Chemical Society, and Google patents. EXPERT OPINION: Developing selective CDK2 inhibitors is challenging due to the absence of a previously approved selective CDK2 inhibitor. However, ongoing efforts by Incyte Corporation and Pfizer Inc., which are reported herein, may stand out as a new starting point and bring novel information critical for the medicinal chemistry and drug design scientists in the field of CDK2 inhibitors' development.

Discovery of 2,4-thiazolidinedione-tethered coumarins as novel selective inhibitors for carbonic anhydrase IX and XII isoforms.

Different 2,4-thiazolidinedione-tethered coumarins 5a-b, 10a-n and 11a-d were synthesised and evaluated for their inhibitory action against the cancer-associated hCAs IX and XII, as well as the physiologically dominant hCAs I and II to explore their selectivity. Un-substituted phenyl-bearing coumarins 10a, 10 h, and 2-thienyl/furyl-bearing coumarins 11a-c exhibited the best hCA IX (KIs between 0.48 and 0.93 µM) and hCA XII (KIs between 0.44 and 1.1 µM) inhibitory actions. Interestingly, none of the coumarins had any inhibitory effect on the off-target hCA I and II isoforms. The sub-micromolar compounds from the biochemical assay, coumarins 10a, 10 h and 11a-c, were assessed in an in vitro antiproliferative assay, and then the most potent antiproliferative agent 11a was tested to explore its impact on the cell cycle phases and apoptosis in MCF-7 breast cancer cells to provide more insights into the anticancer activity of these compounds.

Importance of glutamine 189 flexibility in SARS-CoV-2 main protease: Lesson learned from in silico virtual screening of ChEMBL database and molecular dynamics.

The current global pandemic outbreak of COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2, strikes an invincible damage to both daily life and the global economy. WHO guidelines for COVID-19 clinical management includes infection control and prevention, social distancing and supportive care using supplemental oxygen and mechanical ventilator support. Currently, evolving researches and clinical reports regarding infected patients with SARS-CoV-2 suggest a potential list of repurposed drugs that may produce appropriate pharmacological therapeutic efficacies in treating COVID-19 infected patients. In this study, we performed virtual screening and evaluated the obtained results of US-FDA approved small molecular database library (302 drug molecule) against two important different protein targets in COVID-19. Best compounds in molecular docking were used as a training set for generation of two different pharmacophores. The obtained pharmacophores were employed for virtual screening of ChEMBL database. The filtered compounds were clustered using Finger print model to obtain two compounds that will be subjected to molecular docking simulations against the two targets. Compounds complexes with SARS-CoV-2 main protease and S-protein were studied using molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. MD simulation studies suggest the potential inhibitory activity of ChEMBL398869 against SARS-CoV-2 main protease and restress the importance of Gln189 flexibility in inhibitors recognition through increasing S2 subsite plasticity.

Novel 3-substituted coumarins as selective human carbonic anhydrase IX and XII inhibitors: Synthesis, biological and molecular dynamics analysis.

In this study, diverse series of coumarin derivatives were developed as potential carbonic anhydrase inhibitors (CAIs). A "tail" approach was adopted by selecting the coumarin motif as a tail that is connected to the ZBG benzenesulfonamide moiety via a hydrazine (4a,b) or hydrazide (5a,b) linker. Thereafter, an aryl sulfone tail was incorporated to afford the dual tailed coumarin-sulfonamide arylsulfonehydrazones (13a-d) and hydrazides (14a,b). Then, the ZBG were removed from compounds 13 and 14 to furnish coumarin arylsulfonehydrazones (11a-d) and hydrazides (12a,b). Coumarin-sulfonamides 4 and 5 emerged as non-selective CAIs as they displayed good inhibitory activities toward all the examined CA isozymes (I, II, IX and XII) in the nanomolar ranges. Interestingly, the "dual-tail" approach (compounds 13 and 14) succeeded in achieving a good activity and selectivity toward CA IX/XII over the physiologically dominant CA I/II. In particular, compounds 13d and 14a were the most selective coumarin-sulfonamide counterparts. Concerning non-sulfonamide coumarin derivatives, coumarins 8 exhibited excellent activity and selectivity profiles against the target hCA IX/XII, whereas, coumarins 11 and 12 reported excellent selectivity profile, but they barely inhibited hCA IX/XII with KIs spanning in the micromolar ranges. Furthermore, molecular modelling studies were applied to get a deep focus about the feasible affinities and binding interactions for target coumarin-sulfonamides 4, 5, 13 and 14 with the active site for CA II, IX and XII isoforms.

Development and Validation of High-Throughput Bioanalytical Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) Method for the Quantification of Newly Synthesized Antitumor Carbonic Anhydrase Inhibitors in Human Plasma.

In the present study, a sensitive and fully validated bioanalytical high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method has been developed for the quantitative determination of three newly synthesized carbonic anhydrases inhibitors (CAIs) with potential antitumor activity in human plasma. The analytes and the internal standard (IS) were extracted using 1.5 mL acetonitrile from only 450 µL aliquots of human plasma to achieve the desired protein precipitation. Chromatographic separations were achieved on Phenomenex Kinetex® C18 column (100 × 4.6 mm, 2.6 µm) using a binary gradient elution mode with a run time of less than 6 min. The mobile phase consisted of solvent (A): 0.1% formic acid in 50% methanol and solvent B: 0.1% formic acid in acetonitrile (30:70, v/v), pumped at a flow rate of 0.8 mL/min. Detection was employed using triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer (API 3500) equipped with an electrospray ionization (ESI) source in the positive ion mode. Multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode was selected for quantitation through monitoring the precursor-to-parent ion transition at m/z 291.9 → 173.0, m/z 396.9 → 225.1, m/z 388.9 → 217.0, and m/z 146.9 → 91.0 for AW-9a, WES-1, WES-2, and Coumarin (IS), respectively. Linearity was computed using the weighted least-squares linear regression method (1/x2) over a concentration range of 1-1000, 2.5-800, and 5-500 ng/mL for AW-9a, WES-1, and WES-2; respectively. The bioanalytical LC-MS/MS method was fully validated as per U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines with all respect to linearity, accuracy, precision, carry-over, selectivity, dilution integrity, and stability. The proposed LC-MS/MS method was applied successfully for the determination of all investigated drugs in spiked human plasma with no significant matrix effect, which is a crucial cornerstone in further therapeutic drug monitoring of newly developed therapeutic agents.

Novel benzofuran-based sulphonamides as selective carbonic anhydrases IX and XII inhibitors: synthesis and in vitro biological evaluation.

Pursuing on our efforts toward searching for efficient hCA IX and hCA XII inhibitors, herein we report the design and synthesis of new sets of benzofuran-based sulphonamides (4a,b, 5a,b, 9a-c, and 10a-d), featuring the zinc anchoring benzenesulfonamide moiety linked to a benzofuran tail via a hydrazine or hydrazide linker. All the target benzofurans were examined for their inhibitory activities toward isoforms hCA I, II, IX, and XII. The target tumour-associated hCA IX and XII isoforms were efficiently inhibited with KIs spanning in ranges 10.0-97.5 and 10.1-71.8 nM, respectively. Interestingly, arylsulfonehydrazones 9 displayed the best selectivity toward hCA IX and XII over hCA I (SIs: 39.4-250.3 and 26.0-149.9, respectively), and over hCA II (SIs: 19.6-57.1 and 13.0-34.2, respectively). Furthermore, the target benzofurans were assessed for their anti-proliferative activity, according to US-NCI protocol, toward a panel of sixty cancer cell lines. Only benzofurans 5b and 10b possessed selective and moderate growth inhibitory activity toward certain cancer cell lines.

Synthesis, biological evaluation and in silico studies with 4-benzylidene-2-phenyl-5(4H)-imidazolone-based benzenesulfonamides as novel selective carbonic anhydrase IX inhibitors endowed with anticancer activity.

In the presented work, we report the synthesis of a series of 4-benzylidene-2-phenyl-5(4H)-imidazolone-based benzenesulfonamides 7a-fvia the Erlenmeyer-Plöchl reaction. All the prepared imidazolones 7a-f were evaluated as inhibitors of human (h) carbonic anhydrases (CA, EC 4.2.1.1) cytosolic isoforms hCA I and II, as well as transmembrane tumor-associated isoforms hCA IX and XII. All the tested hCA isoforms were inhibited by the prepared imidazolones 7a-f in variable degrees with the following KIs ranges: 673.2-8169 nM for hCA I, 61.2-592.1 nM for hCA II, 23-155.4 nM for hCA XI, and 21.8-179.6 nM for hCA XII. In particular, imidazolones 7a, 7e, and 7f exhibited good selectivity towards the tumor-associated isoforms (CAs IX and XII) over the off-target cytosolic (CAs I and II) with selectivity index (SI) in the range of 6.2-19.4 and 3.3-8, respectively. Moreover, imidazolones 7a-f were screened for their anticancer activity in one dose (10-5 M) assay against a panel of 60 cancer cell lines according to US-NCI protocol. Furthermore, 7a, 7e and 7f were evaluated for their anti-proliferative activity against colorectal cancer HCT-116 and breast cancer MCF-7 cell lines. Furthermore, 7e and 7f were screened for cell cycle disturbance and apoptosis induction in HCT-116 cells. Finally, a molecular docking study was carried out to rationalize the obtained results.

Application of hydrazino and hydrazido linkers to connect benzenesulfonamides with hydrophilic/phobic tails for targeting the middle region of human carbonic anhydrases active site: Selective inhibitors of hCA IX.

Herein we report the design and synthesis of three different sets of novel benzenesulfonamides (5a-e, 7a-e and 10a-d) incorporating hydrophilic/hydrophobic tails by hydrazido or hydrazino linkers. The newly synthesized benzenesulfonamides were examined in vitro for their inhibitory activity towards four human (h) carbonic anhydrase (hCA, EC 4.2.1.1) isoforms, hCA I, II, IX and XII using a stopped-flow CO2 hydrase assay. All these isoforms were inhibited by the sulfonamides (5a-e, 7a-e and 10a-d) with variable degrees in the following KI ranges: 76.8-357.4 nM for hCA I, 8.2-94.6 nM for hCA II, 2.0-46.3 nM for hCA XI, and 8.3-88.3 nM for hCA XII. The sulfonamide 7d exhibited potent anti-proliferative activity against breast MCF-7 cancer cell line under both normoxic and hypoxic conditions with IC50 values equal 3.32 ±â€¯0.06 and 8.53 ±â€¯0.32 µM, respectively, which are comparable to the reference drug doxorubicin (IC50 = 2.36 ±â€¯0.04 and 8.39 ±â€¯0.25 µM, respectively). Furthermore, 7d was screened for cell cycle disturbance and apoptosis induction in MCF-7 cells. It was found to persuade cell cycle arrest at G2-M stage as well as to alter the Sub-G1 phase, also, 7d resulted in a significant increase in the percent of annexinV-FITC positive apoptotic cells from 1.03 to 18.54%. Molecular docking study was carried out for 7d within the hCA IX and hCA XII active sites to rationalize the obtained inhibition results.

Novel Diamide-Based Benzenesulfonamides as Selective Carbonic Anhydrase IX Inhibitors Endowed with Antitumor Activity: Synthesis, Biological Evaluation and In Silico Insights.

In this work, we present the synthesis and biological evaluation of novel series of diamide-based benzenesulfonamides 5a-h as inhibitors of the metalloenzyme carbonic anhydrase (CA, EC 4.2.1.1) isoforms hCA I, II, IX and XII. The target tumor-associated isoforms hCA IX and XII were undeniably the most affected ones (KIs: 8.3-123.3 and 9.8-134.5 nM, respectively). Notably, diamides 5a and 5h stood out as a single-digit nanomolar hCA IX inhibitors (KIs = 8.8 and 8.3 nM). The SAR outcomes highlighted that bioisosteric replacement of the benzylidene moiety, compounds 5a-g, with the hetero 2-furylidene moiety, compound 5h, achieved the best IX/I and IX/II selectivity herein reported with SIs of 985 and 13.8, respectively. Molecular docking simulations of the prepared diamides within CA IX active site revealed the ability of 5h to establish an additional H-bond between the heterocyclic oxygen and HE/Gln67. Moreover, benzenesulfonamides 5a, 5b and 5h were evaluated for their antitumor activity against renal cancer UO-31 cell line. Compound 5h was the most potent derivative with about 1.5-fold more enhanced activity (IC50 = 4.89 ± 0.22 µM) than the reference drug Staurosporine (IC50 = 7.25 ± 0.43 µM). Moreover, 5a and 5h were able to induce apoptosis in UO-31 cells as evidenced by the significant increase in the percent of annexinV-FITC positive apoptotic cells by 22.5- and 26.5-folds, respectively.

Design, synthesis and 2D QSAR study of novel pyridine and quinolone hydrazone derivatives as potential antimicrobial and antitubercular agents.

The increased development of highly resistant bacterial strains and tuberculosis, constitute a serious public health threat, highlighting the urgent need of novel antibacterial agents. In this work, two novel series of nicotinic acid hydrazone derivatives (6a-r) and quinolone hydrazide derivatives (12a-l) were synthesized and evaluated as antimicrobial and antitubercular agents. The synthesized compounds were evaluated in vitro for their antibacterial, antifungal and antimycobacterial activities. Compounds 6f and 6p bearing the 3,4,5- (OCH3)3 and 2,5-(OCH3)2 benzylidene motifs were the most potent and as antibacterial, antifungal (MIC: 0.49-1.95 µg/mL) and (MIC: 0.49-0.98 µg/mL) respectively and antimycobacterial activity (MIC = 0.76 and 0.39 µg/mL) respectively. Besides, several derivatives, 6e, 6h, 6l-6o, 6q, 6r, 12a, 12b, 12e, 12h, 12k and 12l, exhibited significant antibacterial and antifungal activities with MIC values ranging from 1.95 to 7.81 µg/mL, they also displayed excellent to good activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis with MIC range from 0.39 to 3.12 µg/mL. In addition, some of the most active compounds were tested for cytotoxic activities against human lung fibroblast normal cells (WI-38) and displayed low toxicity. Moreover, 2D-QSAR models to characterize the descriptors controlling the observed activities, were generated and validated.