Synthesis and molecular docking studies of chalcones derivatives as potential antimalarial agent

Chalcone compounds are reported to have diverse biological activities such as antiviral, antimicrobial, antimalarial, antitumor, antifungal, anticancer, and so forth. Herewith we report the synthesis of chalconederived compounds namely (E) -1- (4- fluorophenyl) -3- (3-hydroxyphenyl) prop-2-en-1-one (1) and (E) -1- (4- chlorophenyl) -3- (4-hydroxyphenyl) prop-2-en-1-one (2). Synthesis was carried out by Claisen-Schmidt condensation using a basal catalyst stirrer method. The In Silico method uses Discovery studio software on antimalarial protein with the code 5JWA.pdb and chloroquine as a positive control. From the results of docking compound (1) showed a strong hydrogen bond interaction respectively Ser48, Ser70, Thr435, Asp354, and Lys168, with an interaction energy of cDOCKER -32,5006 kcal/mol. Furthermore, for compound (2) shows the interaction of hydrogen bonds, namely Ala436, Lys168, and Ala150 with interaction energy of cDOCKER -30.0162 kcal/mol. For positive control, chloroquine has a hydrogen bond, Val148, with an interaction energy of cDOCKER -37,408 kcal/mol. Whereas the original FAD ligand showed the interaction of hydrogen bonds respectively Cys117, Ala150, Trp50, Asp354, Ser70, and Ser48 with the interaction energy of cDOCKER -123,444 kcal/mol. The docking results show that compounds (1) and (2) have the potential to be used as an antimalarial drug. To understand the interactions that formed the structure of compounds was confirmed by 1HNMR and 13C-NMR spectroscopic analysis.