A S Nirmalkar

Imidazoles are nitrogen containing heterocyclic compounds, widely present in nature. The imidazole ring is a part of several important natural products, including purine, histamine, histidine and nucleic acid. Highly substituted imidazoles derivatives belong to a crucial structural motif that is seen in many pharmaceutically and biologically interesting molecules. They have been intensively used in medicinal chemistry as drugs such as antihistaminic1, antiulcerative,2 antihelmentic,3 and antipsychotic.4 Several benzimidazoles have been reported as antiviral,7 anticoagulant,8 antiinflammatory,9 antibacterial10 and anticancer agents.11 The present work deals with the derivatization of 2-(1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-yl)-3-oxobutanenitrile with thiazolidin-4-one, oxazolidin-4-one and azetidin-2-one and characterization. All the compounds were tested for biological activity against E. coli, S. typhi, S. aureus while streptomycin was used as standard.