ROS and RNS Scavenging Activity by 2,3-Diarylxanthones

Xanthones constitute an important class of heterocyclic compounds that commonly occur in nature. The inclusion of aryl groups has only been reported for a few synthetic derivatives, being the 2,3-diaryl moiety recently introduced by our group.~ The pharmacological properties of both natural and synthetic xanthones have attracted great attention namely as antioxidant, anti-allergic, anti-inflammatory, antimalarial and antitumour protectors. The antioxidant activity deserves special mention, considering the potent scavenging activity for reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS), as well as metal chelating activity already reported for some compounds bearing the xanthone scaffold. Thus, the main goal of this work was to evaluate the putative scavenging effect on NO, ONOO- and O2 - of the new synthetic 2,3-diarylxanthones (Figure 1), using in vitro non-cellular systems