Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Monatshefte für Chemie - Chemical Monthly https://doi.org/10.1007/s00706-019-02534-z ORIGINAL PAPER Silica‑supported heterogeneous catalysts‑mediated synthesis of chalcones as potent urease inhibitors: in vitro and molecular docking studies Aeysha Sultan 1  · Shanavas Shajahan 2  · Tansir Ahamad 3  · Saad M. Alshehri 3  · Noreen Sajjad 4  · Mehr‑un‑Nisa 1  · Mian Habib Ur Rehman 1  · Lokman Torun 5  · Muhammad Khalid 6  · Roberto Acevedo 7 Received: 11 September 2019 / Accepted: 9 December 2019 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract We herein report a facile and high yielding protocol for silica-supported heterogeneous catalysts-mediated synthesis of chalcones. A comparison of results of our synthesis with conventional synthetic protocols is also being ofered to assess the efciency of the prepared catalysts. Biological evaluation of the newly synthesized compounds as urease inhibitors was performed. Most of the compounds were found to have potent urease inhibition activity. The chalcone 3-(3-hydroxyphenyl)- 1-phenylpropenone was found to be the most potent with percentage inhibition 86.17 ± 0.89 and half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC 50 ) value 11.51 ± 0.03 µM. The molecular docking study emphasized that the same congeners 3-(furan-2-yl)- 1-(4-hydroxyphenyl)propenone, 3-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-1-(4-methoxyphenyl)propanone, and 3-[4-(dimethylamino)phenyl]- 1-(p-tolyl)propenone showed very good inhibitory potential against urease and show a higher docking scores 5718, 5940, 5596 and an ACE of − 246.66, − 244.79, and − 243.06 kJ/mol, respectively than the control ligand. Graphic abstract O HO OMe Keywords Heterogeneous catalyst · Ligand · Docking · Urease · Chalcones Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00706-019-02534-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Roberto Acevedo roberto.acevedo.llanos@gmail.com 1 Department of Chemistry, University of Education, Faisalabad Campus, Faisalabad, Pakistan 2 Nano and Hybrid Materials Laboratory, Department of Physics, Periyar University, 636 011, Salem, India 3 Department of Chemistry, College of Science, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2455, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia 4 Department of Chemistry, University of Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan 5 Department of Chemistry, Yilditz University of Engineering and Technology, Istanbul, Turkey 6 Department of Chemistry, Khawaja Ghulam Fareed University of Engineering and Technology, Rahim Yar Khan, Pakistan 7 Facultad de Ingeniería y Tecnología, Universidad San Sebastián, Bellavista 7, 420524 Santiago, Chile