The Relevance and Insights on 1,4-Naphthoquinones as Antimicrobial and Antitumoral Molecules: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Natural product derivatives are essential in searching for compounds with important chemical, biological, and medical applications. Naphthoquinones are secondary metabolites found in plants and are used in traditional medicine to treat diverse human diseases. Considering this, the synthesis of naphthoquinone derivatives has been explored to contain compounds with potential biological activity. It has been reported that the chemical modification of naphthoquinones improves their pharmacological properties by introducing amines, amino acids, furan, pyran, pyrazole, triazole, indole, among other chemical groups. In this systematic review, we summarized the preparation of nitrogen naphthoquinones derivatives and discussed their biological effect associated with redox properties and other mechanisms. Preclinical evaluation of antibacterial and/or antitumoral naphthoquinones derivatives is included because cancer is a worldwide health problem, and there is a lack of effective drugs against multidrug-resistant bacteria. The information presented herein indicates that naphthoquinone derivatives could be considered for further studies to provide drugs efficient in treating cancer and multidrug-resistant bacteria.

Novel Henna-Related Naphthazarine Photosensitizers for an Effective Photodynamic Therapy of Onychomycosis

“…albicans cell cultures (see Table ). Although not true for Lawson itself, further substituted naphthoquinones, namely, naphthazarines, for which we considered similar keratinophilic features, have been reported to generate ROS upon irradiation. ,, By screening the dedicated set of initial compounds, we were in fact able to identify promising PDT-keratin suitable naphthazarin candidates with absorption maxima around 500 nm wavelength (determined in aqueous media) and interesting biological activities against the pathogens T. rubrum and C.…”

Design, synthesis and identification of novel molecular hybrids based on naphthoquinone aromatic hydrazides as potential trypanocide and leishmanicidal agents

“…Hence, examining molecular frameworks to design novel antiparasitic agents preferably endowed with multitarget features, the 1,4-naphthoquinone skeletons emerged as promising starting material candidates for developing new bioactive hybrid agents (Navarro-Tovar et al 2023). The reason for this is that the literature describes, for example, lawsone, α-lapachone, β-lapachone (Figure 1) and their congeners as having diverse biological properties, including trypanocide and leishmanicidal activities (Cardoso et al 2017, Dantas et al 2017, Guimarães et al 2013, Rani et al 2022, Naujorks et al 2015.…”

Hybrids of 1,4-Naphthoquinone with Thymidine Derivatives: Synthesis, Anticancer Activity, and Molecular Docking Study

“…A typical skeleton of naphthoquinone includes 1,4-naphthoquinone, 1,2-naphthoquinone, and 2,6-naphthoquinone. The most common arrangement is 1,4-naphthoquinone, which occurs in natural substances such as alkannin, lawsone, juglone, plumbagin, and lapachol (Figure 2) [13][14][15]. Compounds containing the 1,4-naphthoquinone moiety are used as dyes due to their color.…”