Synthesis of Bioactive Imidazoles: A Review

Heterocyclic compounds are acquiring more importance in recent years because of their pharmacological activities. The imidazole nucleus is an important synthetic strategy in drug discovery. Imidazole is a planar fivemember ring system with N atom in 1 and 3 positions. The systemic name for the compound is 1, 3 diazole, one of the N bear an H atom and other to be regarded as a pyrrole type N. Imidazole was first named as glyoxaline. It is amphoteric in nature, susceptible to electrophilic and nucleophilic attack. It also occurs in the purine nucleus & amino acid histidine, 4-amino-imidazole-5-carboxamide occurs naturally as a riboside. This interesting group of heterocyclic compound has diverse biological activities such as antimicrobial, anticancer, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, anthelmintic, anticonvulsant, antiulcer, anti-allergic activity etc. Numerous methods for the synthesis of imidazoles and also their various structure reactions offer enormous scope in the field of medicinal chemistry. This articles aims to review the work reported, their chemistry and pharmacological activities of imidazole during past years.