Radical-Scavenging and UV-Radiation Absorption Activities of Aaptamine Derivatives: DFT and TD-DFT Studies

Antioxidant and UV absorption activities of three aaptamine derivatives including piperidine[3,2-b]demethyl(oxy)aaptamine (C1), 9-amino-2-ethoxy-8-methoxy-3H-benzo[de][1,6]naphthyridine-3-one (C2), and 2-(sec-butyl)-7,8-dimethoxybenzo[de]imidazo[4,5,1-ij][1,6]-naphthyridin-10(9H)-one (C3) were theoretically studied by density functional theory (DFT). Optimized geometries of C1C3 and theirs intrinsic thermochemical properties such as bond dissociation energy, proton affinity, and ionization potential were calculated at DFT/M05-2X/6-311++G(d,p) level of theory in vacuo and in water. The results show that C1C3 exhibited similar potent antioxidant activities, which are comparable to well-known antioxidants such as Trolox or cembrene. The radical scavenging activity of the antioxidants were then investigated by evaluation the Gibbs free energy (ΔrG0) of the reaction between C1C3 and the HOO●/HO● radicals via four mechanisms, including: hydrogen atom transfer (HAT), single electron transfer (SET), proton loss (PL) and radical adduct formation (RAF). Kinetic calculation reveals that HOO● scavenging in water is occurred via HAT mechanism with C1@C19 while RAF is more dominant with C2 and C3. Antioxidant activity of aaptamine derivatives can be classified as C1 > C3 > C2. In addition, all compounds are active in UV-Vis absorption; the excitations of which are determined as π-π* transition. Overall, the results suggest the potential applications of the aaptamines in pharmaceutics and cosmetics, i.e. as sunscreen and antioxidant ingredient