Selected aryl thiosemicarbazones as a new class of multi-targeted monoamine oxidase inhibitors

A series of 13 phenyl substituted thiosemicarbazones (SB1-SB13) were synthesized and evaluated for their inhibitory potential towards human recombinant monoamine oxidase A and B (MAO-A and MAO-B, respectively) and acetylcholinesterase. The solid state structure of SB4 was ascertained by the single X-ray diffraction technique. Compounds SB5 and SB11 were potent for MAO-A (IC50 1.82 +/- 0.14) and MAO-B (IC50 0.27 +/- 0.015 M), respectively. Furthermore, SB11 showed a high selectivity index (SI > 37.0) for MAO-B. The effects of fluorine orientation revealed that SB11 (m-fluorine) showed 28.2 times higher inhibitory activity than SB12 (o-fluorine) against MAO-B. Furthermore, inhibitions by SB5 and SB11 against MAO-A and MAO-B, respectively, were recovered to near reference levels in reversibility experiments. Both SB5 and SB11 showed competitive inhibition modes, with K-i values of 0.97 +/- 0.042 and 0.12 +/- 0.006 M, respectively. These results indicate that SB5 and SB11 are selective, reversible and competitive inhibitors of MAO-A and MAO-B, respectively. Compounds SB5, SB7 and SB11 showed moderate inhibition against acetylcholinesterase with IC50 values of 35.35 +/- 0.47, 15.61 +/- 0.057 and 26.61 +/- 0.338 M, respectively. Blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeation was studied using the parallel artificial membrane permeation assay (PAMPA) method. Molecular docking studies were carried out using AutoDock 4.2.