Crystal structure, quantum chemical insights, and molecular docking studies of Naryl-2-(N-_{disubstituted}) acetamide compounds: potential inhibitors for neurodegenerative enzymes

The increase in and concern about neurodegenerative diseases continue to grow in an increasingly long-lived world population. Therefore, the search for new drugs continues to be a priority for medicinal chemistry. We present here the synthesis of a series of compounds with acetamide nuclei. Their structures were established using UV-Visible, NMR, HRMS and IR techniques. Furthermore, we report the crystal structures that were obtained from compounds 5a-5d by X-ray diffraction. The compounds were evaluated as potential inhibitors of the monoxidase enzymes; A (MAO-A) and B (MAO-B), and cholinesterases; acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) through in silico studies using the induced fit docking (IFD) method and binding free energy (Delta G(bind)) calculations by the MMGBSA method. Interestingly, compounds 5b, 5c and 5d showed much better Delta G(bind) than the reference drug Zonisamide. Compound 5c is the best in the series, which indicates a potential selective affinity of our compounds against MAO-B, which could be a promising finding in the search for new drugs for Parkinson's disease treatment. The acetamide crystal exhibits moderate NLO properties suggesting that it could be considered a potential candidate for application in nonlinear optical devices.