Urea and thiourea derivatives of 3-(trifluoromethyl)-5,6,7,8-tetrahydro-[1, 2, 4]triazolo[4,3-a]pyrazine: Synthesis, characterization, antimicrobial activity and docking studies

An efficient and robust synthetic procedure was developed primarily for the synthesis of a precursor compound; 3-(trifluoromethyl)-5,6,7,8-tetrahydro-[1, 2, 4]triazolo[4,3-a]pyrazine (11), from 2-chloropyrazine (7) through the chemical transformations such as hydrazine substitution, trifluoroacetyl group induction, cyclization and pyrazine ring reduction. A new series of urea derivatives 13a-e and thiourea derivatives 13f-j of compound 11 have been synthesized and the structures of all the compounds were confirmed using spectroscopic analyses such as IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, LC-MS and HRMS. The newly synthesized compounds were screened for their in vitro antimicrobial activity against five bacteria and two fungi, in which compounds 13d, 13i and 13j displayed potential activity against bacterial strains and 13a, 13d, 13g and 13j against fungal strains with the MIC values in the range of 6.25–25.0 µg/mL. An overall comparison of the activity results revealed that thiourea derivatives contain better activity than that of urea compounds. Molecular docking studies on poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase 15 (ARTD7, BAL3) demonstrated that all the synthesized compounds possess significant binding energies (-8.1 to -9.8 kcal/mol) with no adverse effect in the active site of protein.