The upsurge of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis has toughened the challenge to put an end to this epidemic by 2030. In 2020 the number of deaths attributed to tuberculosis increased as compared to 2019 and newly identified multidrug-resistant tuberculosis cases have been stably close to 3%. Such a context stimulated the search for new and more efficient antitubercular compounds, which culminated in the QSAR-oriented design and synthesis of a series of isoniazid derivatives active against Mycobacterium tuberculosis . From these, some prospective isonicotinoyl hydrazones and isonicotinoyl hydrazides are studied in this work. To evaluate if the chemical derivatizations are generating compounds with a good performance concerning several in vitro assays, their cytotoxicity against human liver HepG2 cells was determined and their ability to bind human serum albumin was thoroughly investigated. For the two new derivatives presented in this study, we also determined their lipophilicity and activity against both the wild type and an isoniazid-resistant strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis carrying the most prevalent mutation on the katG gene, S315T. All compounds were less cytotoxic than many drugs in clinical use with IC 50 values after a 72 h challenge always higher than 25 µM. Additionally, all isoniazid derivatives studied exhibited stronger binding to human serum albumin than isoniazid itself, with dissociation constants in the order of 10 −4 –10 −5 M as opposed to 10 −3 M, respectively. This suggests that their transport and half-life in the blood stream are likely improved when compared to the parent compound. Furthermore, our results are a strong indication that the N′ = C bond of the hydrazone derivatives of INH tested is essential for their enhanced activity against the mutant strain of M. tuberculosis in comparison to both their reduced counterparts and INH.
Abstract New iron(III) extraction data involving two N,N-disubstituted monoamides, N-ethyl-N-phenyloctanamide (EPHOA) and N-ethyl-N-cyclohexyloctanamide (ECHOA), from hydrochloric acid media, are presented and discussed. These, and earlier results obtained with other similar N,N-disubstituted monoamides, are interpreted in this work through their apparent molar volumes in 1,2-dichloroethane, and all the information is being used to screen for solute-solute and solute-diluent interactions. The results collected help to understand why N-cyclohexyl monoamides are generally more efficient than their N-phenyl analogues as liquid-liquid extractants for iron(III) from 3 to 5 M hydrochloric acid solutions, and clearly denote that N-phenyl monoamides are essentially monomeric whereas N-cyclohexyl monoamide derivatives have a tendency to aggregate in the organic solution. Keywords: Apparent molar volumes N,N-disubstituted monoamidesiron(III)chloride media ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks are due to J. M. Nogueira and collaborators (CQB, DQB-FCUL) for the use of GC-MS facilities, and to FCT (PEst-OE/QUI/UI0612/2011) for financial support.