3,4-Dimethoxybenzohydrazide derivatives as antiulcer: Molecular modeling and density functional studies

3,4-Dimethoxybenzohydrazide derivatives (1–25) have been synthesized and evaluated for their urease inhibitory potential. Among the series, compounds 2, 3, 4 and 5 with IC₅₀ values 12.61 ± 0.07, 18.24 ± 0.14, 19.22 ± 0.21, and 8.40 ± 0.05 µM, respectively, showed excellent urease inhibitory potentials when compared with standard thiourea (IC₅₀ value 21.40 ± 0.21 µM). Compounds 1, 6, 8, 18, 19 and 20 also showed good to moderate inhibition, while the remaining compounds were found to be completely inactive. The structures of compounds 6 and 25 were confirmed through X-ray crystallography while the structures of remaining compounds were confirmed through ESI-MS and ¹H NMR. Molecular docking studies were performed understand the binding interactions with enzyme active site. The synthesized compounds were evaluated for cytotoxicity and found to be nontoxic.