An expeditious on-water regioselective synthesis of novel arylidene-hydrazinyl-thiazoles as DNA targeting agents.

A series of twenty novel (E)-arylidene-hydrazinyl-thiazole derivatives has been synthesized employing α-bromo-β-diketones, thiosemicarbazide, and aromatic/heteroaromatic aldehydes with a simple and facile one-pot multicomponent reaction passageway. This organic transformation proceeds efficiently in aqueous media and demonstrated a large functional group tolerance. The structures and stereochemistry of the regioisomeric product were rigorously characterized using heteronuclear 2D NMR experiments. The binding potential of the synthesized analogs with B-DNA dodecamer d(CGCGAATTCGCG) was primarily screened using molecular modeling tools and further, mechanistic investigations (either groove or intercalation) were performed using various spectroscopic techniques such as UV-Visible, Fluorescence, and Circular dichroism. The absorption spectra showed a hyperchromic shift in the absorption maxima of ctDNA with successive addition of thiazole derivatives, implying groove binding mode of interactions, further supported by displacement assay and circular dichroism analysis. Furthermore, steady-state fluorescence analysis revealed the static mode of quenching and moderate bindings between the ligand and DNA biomolecule. The competitive studies showed that the derivatives having a pyridinyl (heteroaromatic) group in their structure, bind with the nucleic acid of calf-thymus (ctDNA) more effectively in the minor groove region as compared with the aromatic substitutions.