Synthesis, characterization, and in vitro evaluation and in silico molecular docking of thiourea derivatives incorporating 4-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl moiety

A series of acyl thiourea derivatives bearing 4-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl moiety (7 compounds) has been synthesized and characterized by FT-IR, 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy and elemental analyses. The molecular structure of five compounds (2, 4, 5, 6 and 7) was determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. The crystal structures revealed that the carbonyl thiourea units in all determined compounds are mostly planar due in part to the formation of intramolecular NH⋯OC and CH⋯SC hydrogen bonds that form two S (6) rings. The intermolecular contacts of five crystal structures have been preformed based on the Hirshfeld surface and their associated 2D fingerprint plots. All the synthesized compounds were preliminarily screened for their in vitro anti-fungal activity. Especially, compounds 4, 5 and 6 showed a good anti-fungal activity for four different kinds of fungi. Furthermore, all prepared thiourea derivatives were screened for antioxidant potential activity by DPPH free radical scavenging and the excellent activity were found compounds 5 and 6 with the IC50 value of 191.75 μg/mL and 189.75 μg/mL, respectively. In silico molecular docking studies were performed to screen the thiourea derivatives against heat shock protein HSP90.