Synthesis, biological activity, distribution and membrane permeability of novel spiro-thiazines as potent neuroprotectors.

New spiro-derivatives of 1,3-thiazine - potential neuroprotectors have been synthesized. It has been determined that the obtained compounds are biologically active and capable of blocking the glutamate-induced calcium ion uptake into synaptosomes of rat brain cortex. The inhibitory activity of the test substances was shown to depend on the chemical nature and structure of the substituents bound with an exocyclic nitrogen atom. Non-polar alkyl and polar radicals with halogen, oxygen and nitrogen atoms were used as substituents. It is typical of the active spiro-thiazines to have alkyl substituents in ortho- and para-position of the benzene ring. Among the investigated spiro-thiazines it is the derivatives with ethyl- and isopropyl-groups in the aril part of the molecules that are the lead-compounds with a high inhibitory ability. We measured the distribution coefficients of the substances in octanol/buffer and hexane/buffer systems and made conclusions about the ability of the investigated drug-like compounds to penetrate the biological membranes. By using the parabolic model we derived a quadratic equation that allowed us to evaluate quantitatively the inhibitory activity of spiro-thiazines with hydrophobic substituents based on lipophilicity data. We also studied the permeability through the phospholipidic membrane and introduced a correlation equation describing the dependence of the investigated spiro-thiazines activity on the descriptors characterizing the donor-acceptor properties.