Synthesis of β-amino carbonyl derivatives of coumarin and benzofuran and evaluation of their biological activity

A series of β-amino carbonyl compounds containing coumarin (4a–h) and benzofuran (6a–i) moieties was synthesized by a three component Mannich reaction of 3-acetyl-2H-chromen-2-one (1) or 1-(1-benzofuran-2-yl) ethanone (5) with p-substituted aromatic aldehydes (2a–g) and aromatic amines (3a–b) in the presence of cerric ammonium nitrate as a catalyst. The newly synthesized compounds were screened for antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. Compounds 4b, 4e, 4f, 6f, 6g, and 6i showed microbial inhibition with minimal inhibition concentration ranging between 0.040 and 0.500 mg/mL, compounds 4b, 4c, 6c, 6e, and 6i showed promising free radical scavenging activity and compounds 4b, 4f, 6c, 6d, and 6h showed good chelating ability with Fe2+ ions. The synthesized compounds were studied for docking on the enzyme, glucosamine-6-phosphate synthase to predict the binding affinity and orientation at the active site of the receptor.