Synthesis, antimicrobial and QSAR studies of substituted anilides

A series of substituted anilides were synthesized and tested in vitro for antibacterial activity against Gram positive B. subtilis, S. aureus and Gram negative E. coli and as well as for antifungal activity against C. albicans and A. niger. The compounds having a nitro group showed better activity among different substituted anilides. QSAR investigation with linear regression analysis was applied to find correlation between various physicochemical parameters and antimicrobial activity. The QSAR results showed that antibacterial as well as antifungal activity could be modeled using molecular connectivity indices ((0)chi, (0)chi(v) and (2)chi). The predictive ability of models was cross validated by observation of the low residual activity values and appreciable cross validated r(2) values (q(2)) obtained by leave one out (LOO) technique.