A Chemistry Department Faculty Member Publishes a Scientific Paper
Assistant Professor Dr. Sawsan Khudair Abbas from the Chemistry Department published a scientific paper titled:
Synthesis, Molecular Docking, and Biological Evaluation of New Mannich Base Derivatives as Potential Anticancer Agents
in the journal Results in Chemistry
indexed in Q2
The research aimed to prepare a new series of Mannich base compounds (M1-M12) derived from paracetamol via the Mannich reaction. This involved reacting the active hydrogen in paracetamol with anhydrous aldehydes (such as formaldehyde, benzaldehyde, and acetaldehyde) and secondary amines (such as morpholine, piperidine, pyrrolidine, and diethylamine) in the presence of concentrated hydrochloric acid.
[Note: The text abruptly ends here, so the translation stops as well.] The research involved characterizing the prepared compounds based on their physical properties, including melting point and elemental analysis, as well as spectroscopic data (FT-IR, NMR (1H and 13C)). The anticancer potential of these compounds was investigated using the MTT assay on A549 cancer cells at various concentrations (50–250 µg/ml).
The study revealed that several derivatives exhibited promising cytotoxic activity, with IC₅₀ values ranging from 74.80 ± 1.08 to 183.4 ± 1.07 µg/ml. Among them, compounds M5, M6, M7, and M8 showed significant cytotoxicity comparable to the standard drug pemetrexed. Furthermore, molecular docking studies were also conducted to evaluate the potential interaction pattern of the active compounds with the enzyme’s active site. Among this series, the M1, M5, M6, M7, and M8 analogs, and M10, show good interaction with the target protein 1TUP, the crystalline structure of the DNA-binding tumor suppressor protein p53. These results suggest that modification of paracetamol with the Manish base enhances its pharmacokinetic properties. Further studies, including mechanobiological and biochemical studies, are needed to confirm its therapeutic efficacy.
