Antimicrobial Activities and In silico Analysis of Methoxy Amino Chalcone Derivatives

A series of methoxy-4’-amino chalcone derivatives were tested for their antimicrobial activities against Escherichia coli ATCC 25923, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25922 and Candida albicans ATCC 10231. Furthermore, their molecular interactions with dihydropteroate synthase (DHPS) of E. coli and S. aureus were studied with a docking experiment. Compound 4 ((E)-1-(4-aminophenyl)-3-(2,3-dimethoxyphenyl)prop-2-en-1-one) exhibited the strongest activity, in which its activity was equal to sulfamerazine and sulfadiazine used as positive controls. In addition, it showed a good potential to be used as a wide spectrum antimicrobial agent. The in silico experiment showed that the prepared compounds had higher affinity to DHPS of S. aureus than to DHPS of E. coli. The tested compounds showed high similarity interaction with hydroxymethylpterin pyrophosphate (natural substrate of DHPS) in building intermolecular interactions.