In this study, we report the chemical synthesis, computational analysis, and anti-virulent studies of five Vanillin-based hybrids employing phytochemicals.Vanillin (V) is known to have substantial anti-quorum sensing activity against the gram-negative pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Therefore, with the aim to further enhance the potency of Vanillin, it was chemically conjugated via a triazole (T) linker with five phytochemicals-Zingerone (Z), Eugenol (E), Guaiacol (G), Cinnamaldehyde (C), and Ferulic acid (F) to form the hybrids named as VTZ (1), VTE (2), VTG (3), VTC (4), and VTF (5), respectively. Molecular docking studies revealed the strong binding affinity of the designed hybrids with quorum-sensing receptors (LasR, Rh1R, and PqsR). The synthesized hybrids were also evaluated for anti-quorum sensing activities to examine the efficacy against P. aeruginosa bacterial strains PAO1. The hybrids VTE (2), VTG (3), and VTC (4) displayed improved anti-quorum activity relative to Vanillin. Furthermore, the attenuation of virulence factors of P. aeruginosa (Las-A protease, Las-B elastase, pyocyanin pigmentation, and motility) in the presence of VTE (2), VTG (3), and VTC (4) further authenticated the anti-virulent activity of the hybrids. The new design strategy of the phytochemicalphytochemical scaffolds and their biological evaluation provides a proof of concept for the simultaneous perturbation of well-established anti-virulent targets. This appears to be highly promising and effective strategy to ameliorate the enigma of antimicrobial resistance.

In the present work, 4‐hydroxy enigmol (1), an analogue of enigmol which is a known orally bioavailable 1‐deoxysphingolipid, effective against multiple cancer cell lines, has been synthesized with an additional hydroxy group for improved anti‐cancer activity. The additional group in compound (1) is likely to show enhanced activity due to improved cell permeability and hydrophilicity. The key steps involved are stereoselective cross metathesis reaction and OsO4/NMO mediated dihydroxylation. Further, analogues of 4‐hydroxy enigmol (1) with varying chain lengths (2, 3) have also been synthesized using the same synthetic strategy for varying hydrophobicity as an additional structural feature. To support the genesis in the design of compound (1–3), the pharmacokinetic studies and docking analysis has been done for calculating the polar surface area, binding affinity and hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity. The preliminary in‐vitro cytotoxicity on cancer cell lines displayed promising activity against the PC‐3 cell lines and HCT‐116 cell lines.

In-depth structural and packing features of homo- and hetero-halogen interactions in hexa-coordinated metalloporphyrins with the aid of X-ray crystallography, DFT and NCI-RDG analyses are described.