Establishing dependences between different lipophilic parameters of new potentially biologically active N-substituted-2-phenylacetamide derivatives by applying multivariate methods

Lipophilicity, a very important parameter in the potential biological activities of molecules, was investigated for newly synthesized N-substituted-2-phenylacetamide derivatives. The determination was carried out in two ways: first experimentally, by applying thin-layer chromatography (TLC) on reversed-phase TLC (RPTLC) RP18F254s in the presence of one protic (methanol) and one aprotic solvent (acetonitrile) and then mathematically, by using different software packages. The intercept of the linear dependence between volume fractions of the organic solvent and the retention parameters obtained by TLC is known as the retention chromatographic constant, R(M)(0), while the slope represents the m value. In order to establish the dependences between the partition coefficient, log P as the standard measure of lipophilicity and the alternative lipophilic parameters obtained experimentally by TLC, R(M)(0) and m values, linear regression analysis and multivariate methods, cluster analysis (CA) and principal component analysis (PCA), were used. All applied methods gave approximately similar results. Although there is a linear dependence between the two chromatographic parameters, the retention constant, R(M)(0), and the m values, only R(M)(0) shows suitable similarity with the standard measure of lipophilicity of the investigated N-substituted-2-phenylacetamide derivatives at the given conditions. The existence of this resemblance proves that the chromatographic retention constant, R(M)(0), obtained by RPTLC could be successfully used for the description of lipophilicity of investigated compounds. On the other hand, the results confirmed that the applied linear regression analysis and the multivariate analysis (CA and PCA) have the ability to compare lipophilic parameters of the investigated phenylacetamide derivatives obtained in different ways.

Multivariate analysis of chromatographic retention data and lipophilicity of phenylacetamide derivatives

One of the most important physicochemical parameters of a molecule that determines its bioactivity is its lipophilicity. Cluster analysis (CA), principal component analysis (PCA), and sum of ranking differences (SRD) were used to compare the lipophilic parameters of twenty phenylacetamide derivatives, obtained experimentally as chromatographic retention data in the presence of different solvents and calculated by different mathematical methods. All the applied methods of multivariate analysis gave approximately similar grouping of the studied lipophilic parameters. In the attempt to group the investigated compounds in respect of their lipophilicity, the obtained results appeared to be dependent on the applied chemometric method. The CA and PCA, grouped the compounds on the basis of the nature of the substituents R1 and R2, indicating that they determine to a great extent the lipophilicity of the investigated molecules. Unlike them, the SRD method could not be used to group the studied compounds on the basis of their lipophilic character.