Abstract
Oxidative stress is defined as an unbalance between the production of free radicals and the antioxidant defenses. The oxidative stress state has been associated with several pathologies such as neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases or cancers. To prevent oxidative stress-mediated damage, the use of synthetic antioxidants is attractive as it allows to tune their physico-chemical properties as well as their cellular targeting specificity. Of particular interest is the linear alpha-phenyl-N-tert-butylnitrone (PBN) which exhibits pharmacological activity against radical-mediated pathophysiological conditions and has been widely used as analytical reagent for the identification of radical species by the spin-trapping method coupled to electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. In this thesis report, we first tried to improve the intrinsic antioxidant properties of PBN by grafting various substituents either onto the aromatic ring or the N-tert-butyl-group of the nitronyl function. The physico-chemical and biological properties of the compounds were then determined. With optimized nitrone derivatives in hand, the second part of this project consisted in improving the bioactivity and bioavailability of our nitrone agents using amphiphilic carriers or specific targeting ligands.