Design and Synthesis of New 1,4-Dihydropyridines Containing 4(5)-chloro-5(4)-imidazolyl Substituent as a Novel Calcium Channel Blocker

New analogues of nifedipine, in which the ortho-nitro phenyl group at position 4 has been replaced by 4(5)-chloro-5(4)-imidazolyl substituent and which are able to interact with the receptor by hydrogen binding were designed, synthesized, and evaluated as calcium channel antagonists. The designed dihydropyridines were synthesized using the Hantzsch condensation and evaluated as calcium channel antagonists using the high K+ contraction of guinea-pig ileal longitudinal smooth muscle. A docking study was performed using the AutoDock4 program, and QSAR equations were obtained using multilinear regression. Our computational studies indicated that the oxygen of the ester (O10) and the N3' of the imidazole ring form a hydrogen bonding interaction with the NH of HIS 363 and NH of LYS354, respectively, and that the sum of the BEHp5 and RDF075p are the most significant descriptors. The results of calcium channel antagonist evaluation demonstrated that increasing the chain length in C3 and C5 ester substituents increased activity. The most potent compound was the bis-phenylpropyl ester (5l) derivative, in that it was more active than the reference drug nifedipine and that the bis-phenylethyl ester (5k) derivative had comparable activity with nifedipine. The present research revealed that the 4(5)-chloro-5(4)-imidazolyl moiety is a bioisoster of o-nitrophenyl in nifedipine and provided novel dihydropyridines with more activity as calcium channel antagonists.