Microwave‐Assisted Rapid and Efficient Synthesis of New Series of Chromene‐Based 1,2,4‐Oxadiazole Derivatives and Evaluation of Antibacterial Activity with Molecular Docking Investigation

A new series of novel chromene‐based oxadiazole derivatives were synthesized from a variety of chromene‐based amidoximes with readily available carboxylic acids under conventional oil bath heating as well as under microwave irradiation. The use of commercially available EDCI and HOBt as coupling reagents in DMF combined with microwave heating resulted in high yields and purities of the product 1,2,4‐oxadiazoles in an expeditious manner. This methodology is successfully applied to synthesize 18 numbers of new 2H‐chromene‐substituted 1,2,4‐oxadiazole derivatives in good to high yields. The structure of the product was ascertained by X‐ray crystallographic analysis. All the synthesized compounds were evaluated for their in vitro antibacterial activity against two different pathogenic bacterial strains, that is, Escherichia coli (MTCC614) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (MTCC4031). The obtained results from in vitro antimicrobial assays indicated that 6g and 6h exhibited good antibacterial activity nearer to the standard drug, gentamicin. The molecular docking studies showed that compounds 6g and 6h show hydrogen bonding interaction with the bacterial target DNA gyrase of E. coli.