Current Discovery Progress of Some Emerging Anti-infective Chalcones: Highlights from 2016 to 2017

The anti-infective potentials of the natural products are very well known for centuries and are a part of traditional healing. The foremost therapeutic classes include flavones, isoflavones, flavonols, flavanones, flavanols, proanthocyanidins, anthocyanidins, chalcones, and aurones. The chalcone or 1,3-diphenyl-2E-propene-1-one represents the class of natural products which are comprised of benzylideneacetophenone function; i.e. two aromatic moieties linked together by an α, β-unsaturated carbonyl bridge comprising three-carbons. At present, chalcone is one of the privileged scaffolds that can be synthesized in the laboratory to derive different pharmacologically active compounds. This article is the continued form of the previously published work on anti-infective perspectives of chalcones (highlighted till 2015). The current work emphasizes on the discovery process of the chalcone in the period of 2016 to 2017 on malaria, trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis, filaria, tuberculosis, netamodes, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), and miscellaneous conditions. This review comprehensively focuses on the latest progress related with the anti-infective chalcones. The content includes the crucial structural features of chalcone scaffold including structure-activity relationship(s) along with their plausible mechanism of action(s) from the duration Jan 2016 to Dec 2017. This literature will be of prime interest to medicinal chemists in getting ideas and concepts for better rational development of potential anti-infective inhibitors.