Chromone-2- and -3-carboxylic acids inhibit differently monoamine oxidases A and B

Abstract

Chromone carboxylic acids were evaluated as human monoamine oxidase A and B (hMAO-A and hMAOB) inhibitors. The biological data indicated that only chromone-3-carboxylic acid is a potent hMAO-B inhibitor, with a high degree of selectivity for hMAO-B compared to hMAO-A. Conversely the chromone- 2-carboxylic acid resulted almost inactive against both MAO isoforms. Docking experiments were performed to elucidate the reasons of the different MAO IC50 data and to explain the absence of activity versus selectivity, respectively.