Hydroxycoumarins as selective MAO-B inhibitors

With the aim to find out structural features for the MAO inhibitory activity, in the present Letter we report the synthesis, pharmacological evaluation and initial docking study of a new series of differently substituted 3-aryl-4-hydroxycoumarins. Compound 7 is the best MAO-B inhibitor (IC50 = 2.79 μM) of this series and it shows higher MAO-B potency than iproniazide (reference compound IC50 = 7.54 μM). This compound presents also a very good MAO-B selectivity.