Synthesis, biological evaluation and molecular modeling studies of phenyl-/benzhydrylpiperazine derivatives as potential MAO inhibitors.

Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) are potential drug candidates for the treatment of various neurological disorders like Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and depression. In the present study, two series of 4-substituted phenylpiperazine and 1-benzhydrylpiperazine (1-21) derivatives were synthesized and screened for their MAO-A and MAO-B inhibitory activity using Amplex Red assay. Most of the synthesized compounds were found selective for MAO-B isoform except compounds 3, 7, 8, 9 and 13 (MAO-A selective) while compound 11 was non-selective. In the current series, compound 12 showed most potent MAO-B inhibitor activity with IC value of 80 nM and compound 7 was found to be most potent MAO-A inhibitor with IC value of 120 nM and both the compounds were found reversible inhibitors. Compound 8 was found most selective MAO-A inhibitor while compound 20 was found most selective inhibitor for MAO-B isoform. In the cytotoxicity evaluation, all the compounds were found non-toxic to SH-SY5Y and IMR-32 cells at 25 µM concentration. In the ROS studies, compound 8 (MAO-A inhibitor) reduced the ROS level by 51.2% while compound 13 reduced the ROS level by 61.81%. In the molecular dynamic simulation studies for 30 ns, compound 12 was found quite stable in the active cavity of MAO-B. Thus, it can be concluded that phenyl- and 1-benzhydrylpiperazine derivatives are promising MAO inhibitors and can act as a lead to design potent, and selective MAO inhibitors for the treatment of various neurological disorders.