Antioxidant and UV-radiation absorption activity of aaptamine derivatives – Potential application for natural organic sunscreens

Antioxidant and UV absorption activities of three marine product originated - 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). Direct antioxidant activities of C1–C3 were firstly evaluated via their intrinsic thermochemical properties and radical scavenging activity of the potential antioxidants with 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 (kapp, 7.13x10⁶ M-1 s-1) while RAF is more dominant with C2 (k_app, 1.40x10⁵ M-1 s-1) and C3 (kapp, 2.90x10⁵ M-1 s-1). Antioxidant activity of aaptamine derivatives can be classified as C1 > C3 > C2. Indirect antioxidant properties based on Cu(I) and Cu(II) ions chelating activity were also investigated in aqueous phase. All three studied compounds show spontaneous and favorable Cu(I) ion chelating activity with DG0 being -15.4, -13.7, and -15.7 kcal.mol-1, whereas DG0 for Cu(II) chelation are -10.4, -10.8, and -2.2 kcal.mol-1 for C1, C2 and C3, respectively. In addition, all compounds show UVA and UVB absorption; in which the excitations are determined mostly 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.