Schiff’s base derivatives of murrayanine demonstrated enhanced anti-oxidant activity than its parent moiety

Objective: Free radicals like superoxide anion radical (O2 .-), hydroxyl radical (HO.), alkyl radical (R.), alkoxy radical (RO.), peroxy radical (ROO.) and nitric oxide radical (NO.) often leads to oncogenic proliferation, damage deoxyribosyl backbone of DNA, accelerate oxidation of polydesaturated fatty acids, amino acids, and several other co-factors. Several carbazole moieties present in M. koenigii L. like murrayanine, mahanimbine, curryanine, kurryam have been reported to exhibit good anti-oxidant activity. The present research represents an effort to develop few novel hybridized derivatives of murrayanine (an active carbazole derivative) by reacting with various small ligands like urea, semi carbazide and thio semi carbazide with an intention to develop Schiff’s base compounds with higher and potent anti-oxidant activity than its parent moiety (murrayanine). Methods: The study protocol involved DPPH radical scavenging assay and determining in vitro reducing activity of the semi-synthetic derivatives. Results: The study revealed that compound 5 exhibited highest anti-oxidant activity (IC50 of 6.5 μM), followed by derivative 3 which displayed activity at IC50 value of 7.3 μM, which was superior as compared to murrayanine 1 which scavenge the radical at IC50 of 7.6 μM. However, two semi-synthetic compounds (2 and 4) exhibited lesser activity compared to murrayanine, IC50 s of 7.8 and 8.1μM, respectively. The compounds exhibited absorbance in range 0.76-1.3. Highest absorbance of 1.079 was demonstrated by 5. Conclusion: This study can be concluded that these derivatives may have enough potential to be used as anti oxidants and open new doors for research perspectives towards the development of novel radical scavenging moiety.