Publication

Abstract : We report the synthesis of three novel pseudo-peptide molecules derived from 2-amino-2-(1H-indole-2-yl) acetamides (M1-M3). The compounds were subjected to spectroscopic characterization (1H, 13C NMR and MS) and their chemical, electronic, and optical properties have been investigated. The tumoricidal properties of the synthesized molecules were evaluated against breast cancer cell lines, MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231. All molecules demonstrated a dose-dependent cytotoxicity against the tested carcinoma cells. To ascertain their potential pharmacological applicability, the prospective reactive centers and molecular sites prone to interaction with water were identified along with possible sensitivity to autoxidation via molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. Further, we have studied the optical response in the presence of different solvents and compared the electronic and optical properties of the pristine molecules. For this, we have calculated molecular electrostatic potential (MEP), average local ionization energy (ALIE) and Fukui functions and mapped their values to the electron density surface. In addition, possible sensitivity of newly synthetized molecules has been also investigated, via DFT calculations of bond dissociation energies for hydrogen abstraction (H-BDE). Furthermore, we highlight the subtle dependence of the properties on the structure and composition of these pseudo-peptides. Our results indicate that these molecules have high pharmaceutical potential and could serve as lead components in new drug formulations. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.