The treatment of parasitic infections requires the application of chemotherapy. In view of increasing resistance to currently in-use drugs, there is a constant need to search for new compounds with anthelmintic activity. A series of 16 cinnamylidene derivatives of rhodanine, including newly synthesized methoxy derivatives (1-11) and previously obtained chloro, nitro, and diethylamine derivatives (12-16), was investigated towards anthelmintic activity. Compounds (1-16) were evaluated against free-living nematodes of the genus Rhabditis sp. In the tested group of rhodanine derivatives, only compound 2 shows very high biological activity (LC50 = 0.93 µg/µL), which is higher than the reference drug albendazole (LC50 = 19.24 µg/µL). Crystal structures of two compounds, active 2 and inactive 4, were determined by the X-ray diffraction method to compare molecular geometry and search for differences responsible for observed biological activity/inactivity. Molecular modelling and selected physicochemical properties prediction were performed to assess the potential mechanism of action and applied in the search for an explanation as to why amongst all similar compounds only one is active. We can conclude that the tested compound 2 can be further investigated as a potential anthelmintic drug.
Keywords: Rhabditis sp.; anthelmintic activity; cinnamylidene derivatives of rhodanine; crystal structure; molecular modelling.