Synthesizing bioactive small molecules by structural modification of 1,4-naphthoquinone was the primary goal of this research. Several bioactive compounds with anticancer, antifungal, and antibacterial activities were synthesized. All the synthetic protocols were optimized in such ways that do not require cumbersome purification. First, a new protocol for the synthesis of NQM111 was developed. NQM111 is a highly potent anticancer agent developed in our laboratory, but the old protocol does not provide enough quantity for in vivo study. Therefore, a new safe and improved method was developed which provides enough quantity for in vivo study. The second project involves the synthesis of 1,4-naphthoquinone conjugated with an aromatic group. These compounds are a highly potent anticancer agent with ~8-fold selectivity towards cancer cell lines than the non-cancer cell line. A mode of action study of this compound was identified, and it was observed that these compounds generate reactive oxygen species,which triggers apoptosis. The final project involves the synthesis of 1,4-naphthoquinone based antifungal, and antibacterial compounds. These compounds are multi-cationic in nature with a hydrophobic tail. Six different analogs with varying hydrophobic tails were synthesized and tested for their antibacterial and antifungal activity. These compounds showed excellent activity against wide range of fungi including resistant strains.

The purpose of this investigation was the synthesis of some 1,4-naphthoquinones and 1,4-anthraquinones. It will be shown that some of these substituted quinones exhibit physiological properties.

Yes / We have used literature values for the solubility of vitamin K3 in organic solvents to obtain Abraham descriptorsfor vitamin K3. Although these descriptors themselves are not exceptional in any way, when combined withequations that we have already set out, they lead to the prediction of important properties of vitamin K3.These include the vapor pressure and heat of sublimation (necessary for the analysis of data on the concentrationof vitamin K3 in ambient air), and the partitions air-water, air-blood, air-lung, air-fat, air-skin, water-lipid, water-membrane, water-skin, as well as permeation from water through skin. Values of the partitions into biologicalphases are all quite large by comparison to those for organic compounds in general.