Naphthoquinone amino derivatives exhibit interesting physicochemical properties and a wide range of biological activities with potential medicinal applications. A clean, fast and simple method for the preparation of phenylamino-1,4-naphthoquinones is presented by the reaction of naphthoquinone (NQ) and anilines under ultrasound irradiation (US). Anilino derivatives were synthesized in good yields and shorter reaction times in comparison with the conventional method. This ultrasound procedure can be applied to the preparation of naphthoquinone derivatives with anilines containing electron-donor substituents (2-OMe, 4-OMe, 4-Me and 4-OEt) or halogen or electron-withdrawing substituents (4-F, 4-Cl, 4-Br, 3-F, 3-Cl, 3-Br, 4-Ac). This procedure was also applied to the reaction of anilines with 2,3-dichloro-1,4-naphthoquinone (DCNQ). A reaction mechanism involving an EDA complex is proposed based on NMR experiments and previous studies about solid/solid reactions.
Natural product derivatives are essential in searching for compounds with important chemical, biological, and medical applications. Naphthoquinones are secondary metabolites found in plants and are used in traditional medicine to treat diverse human diseases. Considering this, the synthesis of naphthoquinone derivatives has been explored to contain compounds with potential biological activity. It has been reported that the chemical modification of naphthoquinones improves their pharmacological properties by introducing amines, amino acids, furan, pyran, pyrazole, triazole, indole, among other chemical groups. In this systematic review, we summarized the preparation of nitrogen naphthoquinones derivatives and discussed their biological effect associated with redox properties and other mechanisms. Preclinical evaluation of antibacterial and/or antitumoral naphthoquinones derivatives is included because cancer is a worldwide health problem, and there is a lack of effective drugs against multidrug-resistant bacteria. The information presented herein indicates that naphthoquinone derivatives could be considered for further studies to provide drugs efficient in treating cancer and multidrug-resistant bacteria.
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