Integrated Biological Evaluation of Benzimidazolium-Chalcone Derivatives: Antioxidant, Anti-AChE, Anticancer, and Anti-MRSA Activities With Docking Insights.
Çimentepe Mehmet M, Ünver Hakan H, Necip Adem A, Ersatir Mehmet M et al.
Four new benzimidazolium-chalcone salt derivatives were synthesized and successfully characterized using 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and FT-IR spectroscopy. Their antioxidant activity, acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitory potential, antibacterial and antibiofilm activities against MRSA and MSSA strains, as well as their anticancer and apoptosis-inducing properties in human colon adenocarcinoma (HT-29) cells, were comprehensively evaluated. Among the synthesized compounds, 3a exhibited the strongest antioxidant activity, with IC50 values of 10.13 ± 0.30 µg/mL in the ABTS assay and 79.40 µg/mL in the DPPH assay, and demonstrated the highest AChE inhibitory effect. Molecular docking analysis further supported these findings, revealing a favorable binding affinity of compound 3a toward the 4EY7 target protein, with a docking score of -8.619 kcal/mol. Antibacterial evaluation using the agar well diffusion method showed that compound 3b produced the largest inhibition zone (19.2 ± 0.6 mm). Consistently, MIC analysis confirmed that 3b displayed potent antibacterial activity against MRSA (MIC: 1 µg/mL) and exhibited the most pronounced antibiofilm effect among the tested derivatives. In cytotoxicity assays, compound 3c demonstrated the highest anticancer activity against HT-29 cells, with an IC50 value of 16.7 ± 2.09 µM. Apoptosis analysis revealed that 3c predominantly induced early-stage apoptosis.