No abstract

This paper reports the synthesis and the antiviral activities of a series of 6-arylmethyl-1-(allyloxymethyl)-5-alkyluracil derivatives, which can be viewed as analogues of the anti-HIV-1 drug emivirine (formerly MKC-442) from which they differ in the replacement of the ethoxymethyl group with variously allyloxymethyl moieties. The most active compounds N-1 allyloxymethyl- and N-1 3-methylbut-2-enyl substituted 5-ethyl-6-(3,5-dimethylbenzyl)uracils (12 and 13) showed activity against HIV-1 wild-type in the picomolar range with selective index of greater than 5 x 10(6) and activity in the submicromolar range against the clinically important Y181C and K103N mutant strains known to be resistant to emivirine. Structure-activity relationship studies established a correlation between the anti-HIV-1 activity and the substitution pattern of the N-1 allyloxymethyl group.

The reaction of 3-(1-adamantyl)-4-substituted-1,2,4-triazoline-5-thiones 3a-g with sodium chloroacetate, in ethanolic sodium hydroxide yielded the corresponding N1-acetic acid derivatives 4a-g. The interaction of 3a-g with ethyl 2-bromopropionate in acetone, in the presence of potassium carbonate, yielded the corresponding N1-ethyl propionate derivatives 5a-g, which upon hydrolysis with aqueous sodium hydroxide afforded the corresponding propionic acid derivatives 6a-g. Similarly, the reaction of 3-(1-adamantyl)-4-amino-1,2,4-triazoline-5-thione 7 with sodium chloroacetate in ethanolic sodium hydroxide yielded the corresponding N1-acetic acid derivative 8. On the other hand, the reaction of 2-(1-adamantyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazoline-5-thione 9 with sodium chloroacetate yielded the corresponding S-acetic acid derivative 10. Compounds 4a-g, 5b, 5c, 5g, 6a-g, 8 and 10 were tested for in vitro activities against a panel of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and the yeast-like pathogenic fungus Candida albicans. Several derivatives produced good or moderate activities particularly against Bacillus subtilis. In addition, the in vivo anti-inflammatory activities of these compounds were determined using the carrageenin-induced paw oedema method in rats. Compounds 4a, 4b, 4e, 4f, 6f, 6g and 10 produced good dose-dependent anti-inflammatory activities.

Novel emivirine and TNK-651 analogues 5a-d were synthesized by reaction of chloromethyl ethyl ether and / or benzyl chloromethyl ether, respectively, with uracils having 5-ethyl and 6-(4-methylbenzyl) or 6-(3,4-dimethoxybenzyl) substituents. A series of new uracil non-nucleosides substituted at N-1 with cyclopropylmethyloxymethyl 9a-d, 2-phenylethyloxymethyl 9e-h, and 3-phenylprop-1-yloxymethyl 9i-l were prepared on treatment of the corresponding uracils with the appropriate acetals 8a-c. Some of the tested compounds showed good activity against HIV-1 wild type. Among them, 1-cyclopropylmethyloxymethyl-5-ethyl-6-(3,5-dimethylbenzyl)uracil 9c and 5-ethyl-6-(3,5-dimethylbenzyl)-1-(2-phenylethyloxymethyl)uracil 9g showed inhibitory potency equally to emivirine against HIV-1 wild type. Furthermore, compounds 9c and 9g showed marginal better activity against NNRTI resistant mutants than emivirine.