1,2,4-Triazole derivatives as novel and potent antifungal agents: Design, synthesis and biological evaluation

Fungal infections are still threatening human health due to resistance to existing drugs, therefore, the design and development of novel antifungal agents is to be necessary and also, is interesting topic for medicinal chemist. Azole derivatives are one of the promising antifungal agents, which exert their activities through inhibition of cytochrome P450 14α-demethylase (CYP51). In this regard, a new series of 1,2,4-triazole derivatives (7a-i) were designed, synthesized and confirmed with IR, 1HNMR, 13CNMR and Mass spectrum. The antifungal activity of these compounds were investigated against several yeasts (candida species), filamentous and clinical strains using the CLSI method. Furthermore, to measure the cytotoxic activity, MTT assay was also done against MRC-5 as normal human fibroblasts cell line. Our results represented that most of the compounds had appropriate activity ranging from 0.5-256 µg/mL, especially, compounds 7g and 7h were found to be more potent against yeast strains and clinical strain of Fluconazole-resistant and Fluconazole-sensitive with MIC values of 0.5 µg/mL compared to the Fluconazole as control drug. Subsequently, molecular docking studies were performed to find the binding energy and interaction mode of these compounds in the active site of 14α-demethylase enzyme as plausible target of azole compounds. According to in vitro antifungal assay and in silico ADME predictions, compounds 7g and 7h can be considered as potent candidates for further studies.