New imino-methoxy derivatives: design, synthesis, characterization, antimicrobial activity, DNA interaction and molecular docking studies.

Four new diarylmethylamine imine compounds (5a-5d) were prepared in order to examine their DNA binding properties, antimicrobial activity and molecular docking. The compounds were characterized by the common spectroscopic and analytic methods. Furthermore, solid-state structure of compounds 5a and 5c were determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction studies. The compounds were then investigated for their DNA binding properties employing UV absorption, fluorescence spectroscopy under the physiological pH condition Tris-HCl buffer at pH 7.4. The compounds 5a-5d showed moderate binding constants with Kb values of 3.56 ± 0.3 × 10, 2.18 ± 0.2 × 10, 1.44 ± 0.3 × 10 and 2.56 ± 0.3 × 10 M, respectively. The molecular dockings were performed to investigate the ligand-DNA interactions. The in-silico DNA-compound interaction studies showed that the compounds interact with DNA in groove binding mode. Antimicrobial activity studies of imine compounds were tested against as bacteria, , and as fungi. While all compounds show moderate activity against bacteria, no activity against fungi has been investigated.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.