In this work, we report the antileishmanial evaluation of twenty 7-chloro-4-quinolinyl hydrazone derivatives (1-20). Firstly, the compounds were tested against promastigotes of four different Leishmania species. After that, all derivatives were assayed against L. braziliensis amastigotes and murine macrophages. Furthermore, it was investigated whether the antiamastigote L. braziliensis effect of the compounds could be associated with nitric oxide production. Compounds 6 and 7 showed a strong leishmanicidal activity against intracellular parasite with IC50 in nanogram levels (30 and 20 ng/mL, respectively). Appreciable activity of three compounds tested can be considered an important finding for the rational design of new leads for antileishmanial compounds.

A series of N-acylhydrazonyl-thienyl derivatives (compounds 2 and 3), mainly of the type 2-(aryl-CH=N-NHCOCH2 )-thiene (2: aryl = substituted-phenyl; 3: aryl = heteroaryl) were evaluated against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Particularly active compound was 3 (heteroaryl = 5-nitrothien-2-yl or 5-nitrofuran-2-yl) with MIC values of 8.5 and 9.0 μM, respectively. Moderately active compounds were compound 3 (heteroaryl = pyridin-2-yl) and compound 2 containing aryl = 2- or 4-hydroxyphenyl groups, with MIC values between 170 and 408 μM. Compound 2 containing OMe, H, F, Cl, Br, CN, and NO2 substituents and compound 3 (heteroaryl = furan-2-yl, thien-2-yl, pyrrol-2-yl, imidazol-2-yl, pyridin-3-yl, and pyridin-4-yl) were all inactive. Clearly, there is no correlation of activity with the electronic effects of the substituents. The activities suggest different modes of biological action of the compounds having nitro-heteroaryl groups, on the one hand, and the 2-hydroxyphenyl or pyridin-2-yl substituents, on the other hand. Compounds having 2- or 4-hydroxyphenyl, 2-hydroxy-5-nitrophenyl, or 4-hydroxy-3-chlorophenyl were less cytotoxic than ethambutol. It is important to notice that compound 3 (aryl = 5-NO2 -furan-2-yl) exhibited a promising therapeutic index (TI = 1093.90), with a value 4.4 less than that of ethambutol. Compounds 2 and 3 exist in DMSO or MeOD solutions as mixtures of EC(O)N /EC=N and ZC(O)N /EC=N conformers.

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A series of twenty-three N-acylhydrazones derived from isoniazid (INH 1-23) have been evaluated for their in vitro antibacterial activity against INH- susceptible strain of M. tuberculosis (RG500) and three INH-resistant clinical isolates (RG102, RG103 and RG113). In general, derivatives 4, 14, 15 and 16 (MIC=1.92, 1.96, 1.96 and 1.86 µM, respectively) showed relevant activities against RG500 strain, while the derivative 13 (MIC=0.98 µM) was more active than INH (MIC=1.14 µM). However, these derivatives were inactive against RGH102, which displays a mutation in the coding region of inhA. These results suggest that the activities of these compounds depend on the inhibition of this enzyme. However, the possibility of other mechanisms of action cannot be excluded, since compounds 2, 4, 6, 7, 12–17, 19, 21 and 23 showed good activities against katG-resistant strain RGH103, being more than 10-fold more active than INH.