Amelioration potential of synthetic oxime chemical cores against multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's diseases: Evaluation in aspects of in silico and in vitro experiments

Abstract

Alzheimer disease (AD) and multiple sclerosis (MS) are inflammatory neurological disorders. The main symptom of AD is dementia, and the main symptoms of MS are vertigo, sexual dysfunction, cognitive problems, and fatigue. Today, millions of people are affected by AD and MS, and the number is growing day by day. However, there are not any accurate remedies for both disorders. For this reason, discovering novel drug molecules against neurological disorders such as AD and MS is essential and precious. Oximes and benzofurans exhibit many pharmacological effects including anti-inflammatory and neurological activities. Thus, several novel compounds bearing oxime and benzofuran chemical cores were designed and synthesized, and their in vitro anticholinesterase activities were investigated in our previous study. A number of the synthesized molecules showed excellent anticholinesterase activity against both AChE and BChE enzymes. The mentioned study constituted a background for this study. In this study, we picked different chemical skeletons among all the synthesized molecules to conduct further in silico and in vitro experiments. In order to support our in vitro anticholinesterase findings, we also examined in silico anti-Alzheimer activity of the selected molecules. In addition, in silico and in vitro activities against MS disease of the synthesized molecules were investigated. Molecule 4 extraordinarily showed outstanding activity against AD disease both in silico and in vitro, as well as in silico activity against MS disease. This feature makes molecule 4 a possible drug lead molecule which is very limited in the market. On the other hand, molecule 1, a less substituted oxime skeleton, demonstrated the strongest in vitro activity against MS disease through in vitro anti-inflammatory effect. As an observation, molecule 4 was determined to be the most promising molecule to focus on in the further steps. © 2024 Elsevier B.V.