Analysis of the antioxidant activity of 4-(5-chloro-2-hydroxyphenylamino)-4-oxobut-2-enoic acid derivatives using quantum-chemistry descriptors and molecular docking.

In the present work, the molecular structure and the antioxidant activity of 4-(5-chloro-2-hydroxyphenylamino)-4-oxobut-2-enoic acid (A) and its derivatives (B-E) have been studied at the B3LYP/6-31++G(2d,2p) computational level. The obtained results indicate that the hydrogen atom transfer (HAT mechanism) is thermodynamically more favored in gas phase; whereas, the sequential proton loss-electron transfer (SPLET mechanism) is more preferred in polar solvents. The antioxidant activity of compounds A-E is also analyzed by the calculation of atomic spin densities, chemical hardnesses, dipole moments, and lipophilicity indexes. It turns out that compound E (R = t-Bu) is predicted to be more antioxidant than ascorbic acid and other derivatives A-D in both gas phase and polar solvents. The high antioxidant activity of compound E compared to other derivatives A-D is also rationalized using the molecular docking technique.