Synthesis, Biological Evaluation, and Docking Studies of Open-chain Carbohydrate Amides as Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitors



Alzheimer’s disease is a multifactorial syndrome, which is not yet fully understood, causing memory loss, dementia, and, ultimately, death. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors are the mainstay drugs that are used in disease-symptomatic treatment. In this work, we report a new synthetic route yielding sugar amides as low to moderate acetylcholinesterase inhibitors.



Commercially available diacetone glucose was converted into perbenzyl D-glucono-1,4-lactone, which reacted with aromatic or aliphatic amines to afford the corresponding new amides in a high isolated yield. Docking studies of the most promising hydroxybutylamide and benzylamide were performed to assign binding interactions with acetylcholinesterase and determine the key features for bioactivity.



The inhibitors are accommodated in enzyme gorge, blocking the access to Ser203 mainly due to π-π stacking interactions of sugar benzyl groups with the aromatic gorge residues, Tyr337 and Tyr341 for both inhibitors and Trp439 only for the hydroxybutylamide.



Bonding is also significant through sugar interaction with the residues Tyr124 and Ser125-OH in both inhibitors. Flexibility of these open-chain structures seems to be quite relevant for the observed binding to acetylcholinesterase.
