STUDY OF THE BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY DESCRIPTORS OF THE BARBITURIC ACID DERIVATIVES

Abstract

Barbituric acid derivatives have been pharmacologically significant compounds for decades. The central nervous system effects are conditioned by the presence of the pyrimidine-trione ring and the nature of the substituent in position 5. Lipophilicity as one of the key molecular descriptors of biological activity for selected barbituric acid derivatives was determined experimentally, using reversed-phase thin layer chromatography (RP TLC18 F254s), in two solvent systems. The influence of the substituent’s nature and the effects of applied organic modifiers on the chromatographic behavior of the tested derivatives were examined. For the studied derivatives the values of the partition coefficient (logP) as a standard measure of lipophilicity and effective concentration (EC50) as a measure of acute toxicity for different test organisms were calculated applying the appropriate software packages. Dependence between the chromatographic parameters as assumed measures of lipophilicity and the software-derived biological activity parameters of the studied barbituric acid derivatives were studied by linear regression analysis.
Keywords: barbituric acid derivatives, lipophilicity, toxicity.