Structural, Spectral, Molecular Docking, and Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Phenylthiophene-2-Carboxylate Compounds as Potential Anticancer Agents

Abstract

Important biological compounds, namely, methyl 3-amino-4-(4-bromophenyl)thiophene-2-carboxylate (BPTC) and methyl 3-amino-4-(4-chlorophenyl)thiophene-2-carboxylate (CPTC), were characterized using complementary techniques of Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), Raman spectroscopy. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) confirmed the structural features, while Ultra Violet–Visible Spectroscopy was used to investigate the electronic properties of both compounds. The quantum chemical calculations for both compounds were performed using the DFT/B3LYP functional with the 6-311++G(d,p) basis set. This study computes electrostatic potential observation, electron localization function (ELF) assessment, and atoms-in-molecules (AIM) analysis. In the present investigation, the global hardness, chemical softness, electrophilicity, nucleophilicity indices, and dipole moment of both compounds were calculated. In addition, a molecular docking analysis was conducted to determine the binding potential of target molecules with protein tyrosine phosphatase. A 200-ns molecular dynamics (MDs) simulation had been performed to assess the compound’s binding stability.

Keywords:

• Vibrational spectroscopy
• DFT calculations
• ELF
• chemical reactivity
• molecular docking
• molecular dynamics simulations

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the research groups at Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for their support of their project (PNURSP2022R13).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Since no datasets were created or analyzed for this article, data sharing is not applicable.

Additional information

Funding

No organization provided funding for the authors’ submitted work.