Design, synthesis, and greener pasture biological assessment of a novel nucleoside: 1-(α-D-ribofuranosyl)-6,7-difluoro-2-methyl-4-quinazolinone as an inhibitor of COVID-19 and Alzheimer's disease.

Synthesis of a new fluorinated nucleoside of 6,7-difluoro-2-methyl-4-quinazolinone was described. 2-Amino-4,5-difluorobenzoic acid 1 reacts with (CH3CO)2O followed by ammonia to form (1H)-6,7-difluoro-2-methyl-4-quinazolinone 3a. Ribosylation of a silylated 4 with l-O-acety1-2,3-5-tri-O-benzoyl-α-D-ribofuranose 5 forms a protected nucleoside 6 then unprotected from 6 to give a free nucleoside 7. Greener pasture biological docking of the cystine protease of COVID-19 [Mpro, code 7BQY, PDB] by novel nucleoside and fluoroquinazoline compounds is presented. LIGPLOT (2D) representations calculated for the same ligands are shown. A superposition of remdesivir approved medicine, N3 inhibitor, and our ligands docked together into the binding protein of 7BQY is also given for a fair comparison. The binding affinities of remdesivir, N3 inhibitor, the nucleoside 7, and fluoroquinazoline 3a, 3b compounds with 7BQY calculated under the same conditions are -7.7, -7.4, -7.6, -6.1, and -6.1 kcal mol-1, respectively. The high values were due to the existence of many hydrophobic interactions and hydrogen bonds between the ligands and the active amino acid residues of the receptor, indicating a promising candidate as a COVID-19 inhibitor. Pro Tox -II server showed that compound 7 has a similar feature to the approved antiviral drug remdesivir for COVID-19. Additionally, a fascinating molecular modeling investigation showed that our nucleoside demonstrated good binding inhibition of AChE enzyme towards advancing an efficient medication against Alzheimer's disease. Finally, DFT has been conducted to illustrate the MD results in terms of the molecular descriptor-based structural activity relationship calculated from FMOs.

Nucleosides 7(9): synthesis, structure, and biological activity of new 6-arylidenamino-2-thio- and 2-benzylthiopyrimidine N-nucleosides.

The condensation of 6-amino-2-thioxo-2,3-dihydro-1H-pyrimidine-4-one [compound (1)] with aromatic aldehydes (2) afforded azomethine derivatives (3). The formed azomethines underwent glycosidation with α-acetobromoglucose (4) to form the corresponding pyrimidine N-glycosides (6) and not S-glycosides (5). The interaction of (3) with 1-O-acetyl-2, 3, 5-tri-O-benzoyl-ß-D-ribofuranose (8) afforded the corresponding pyrimidine N-riboside (10) and not S-riboside (9). Deacetylation and debenzoylation of each of (6) and (10) by using methanolic sodium methoxide afforded the corresponding free N-nucleosides (7) and (11), respectively. Next, the reaction of 2-benzylthio-6-benzylidenaminouracil (13) with (4) and (8) did not yield the corresponding protected N-nucleosides (14) and (17), whereas it afforded (15) and (18), respectively. The latter compounds (15) and (18) were stirred in methanolic sodium methoxide to yield the corresponding free N-nucleosides (16) and (19), respectively. The structures of products have been elucidated and reported and also some of the products were screened for their antimicrobial activity. Graphical Abstract: