Functionality study of chalcone-hydroxypyridinone hybrids as tyrosinase inhibitors and influence on anti-tyrosinase activity

Abstract

In an attempt to synthesise new tyrosinase inhibitors, we designed and synthesised a series of chalcone-hydroxypyridinone hybrids as potential tyrosinase inhibitors adopting strategic modifications of kojic acid. All the newly synthesised compounds were characterised by NMR and mass spectrometry. Initial screening of the target compounds demonstrated that compounds 1a, 1d, and 1n had relatively strong inhibitory activities against tyrosinase monophenolase, with IC₅₀ values of 3.07 ± 0.85, 2.25 ± 0.8 and 2.75 ± 1.19 μM, respectively. The inhibitory activity against monophenolase was 6- to 8-fold higher than that of kojic acid. Compounds 1a, 1d, and 1n also showed inhibition of diphenolase, with IC₅₀ values of 17.05 ± 0.07, 11.70 ± 0.03 and 19.3 ± 0.28 μM, respectively. The inhibition kinetics of diphenolase indicates that compounds 1a and 1d induce reversible inhibition on tyrosinase. Finally, we found that copper coordination should be one of the important inhibitory mechanism of these compounds in tyrosinase.

Keywords:

• Tyrosinase inhibitor
• hydroxypyridinone
• chalcone analogue
• monophenolase
• diphenolase

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest, financial or otherwise.

Additional information

Funding

The authors are grateful to the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China [No. LY17B020001], and School of Food Science and Biotechnology, Zhejiang Gongshang University for financial support and constant encouragement.