Novel biphenyl bis-sulfonamides as acetyl and butyrylcholinesterase inhibitors: Synthesis, biological evaluation and molecular modeling studies

•Synthesis of novel biphenyl bis-sulfonamides.•Facile synthetic protocol.•Good to excellent yields.•AChE and BChE activities.•Compound 3p was most active against AChE.

A series of new biphenyl bis-sulfonamide derivatives 2a–3p were synthesized in good to excellent yield (76–98%). The inhibitory potential of the synthesized compounds on acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE) was investigated. Most of the screened compounds showed modest in vitro inhibition for both AChE and BChE. Compared to the reference compound eserine (IC50 0.04 ± 0.0001 μM for AChE) and (IC50 0.85 ± 0.0001 μM for BChE), the IC50 values of these compounds were ranged from 2.27 ± 0.01 to 123.11 ± 0.04 μM for AChE and 7.74 ± 0.07 to <400 μM for BuChE. Among the tested compounds, 3p was found to be the most potent against AChE (IC50 2.27 ± 0.01 μM), whereas 3g exhibited the highest inhibition for BChE (IC50 7.74 ± 0.07 μM). Structure–activity relationship (SAR) of these compounds was developed and elaborated with the help of molecular docking studies.

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