Research Journal of Pharmacy and Technology

A series of new captopril thiosemicarbazide derivatives (2–7) were evaluated in vitro for ACE inhibitor activity, using developed colorimetric assay as a simple, sensitive, and cost-effective method. Compounds (4 and 7), substituted with an electron-withdrawing group, showed good ACE inhibition activity, compared to nonsubstituted derivatives, and compounds substituted with electron-donating groups, with percent inhibition of 76.23±0.44 and 79.22±0.25, and IC50 (0.137 and 0.103 μμ), respectively. The molecular docking study revealed good agreement for compounds (4 and 7) with in vitro findings, respectively, with binding energy (−6.99 and -7.3 Kcal/mol). In silico pre-ADMET analysis, all derivatives are supposed to show appropriate intestinal absorption with low BBB penetration, and a closer carcinogenicity score to zero. The lipophilicity of the synthetic compounds, expressed with Clog p values, showed good correlation with in vitro ACE inhibition activity.