Microorganisms are becoming increasingly resistant to antimicrobials. Despite the efforts of many companies to develop new antimicrobials, the number of new drugs has declined dramatically in recent years, with only a few antimicrobials from the new structural classes entering the market. Due to their important role in cell survival, topoisomerases are important research targets for the discovery of antibacterial and antitumor agents. Bacteria express two different type IIA topoisomerases, DNA gyrase and topoisomerase IV. These two enzymes are absent in eukaryotes and are essential for bacterial survival. Drugs that bind to DNA gyrase act through two main mechanisms, among which we focused on the inhibition of the ATP-binding site on DNA gyrase B. In recent years, many structurally diverse classes of DNA gyrase B inhibitors have been discovered that have good on-target activities and antibacterial properties, but have some drawbacks such as nonoptimal physicochemical properties or toxicity.
Based on the known structures of DNA gyrase B inhibitors, two series of ATP-competitive DNA gyrase B inhibitors were designed. The first series had piperidine-3-amine substituent bound on the benzene ring, and the second series had a pyrrolidine-3-amine substituent attached. The N-phenylpyrrolamide portion of the molecule was common to both series. The efficacy of the prepared compounds was evaluated by performing biological tests on DNA gyrase and topoisomerase IV enzymes from E. coli and S. aureus, and antibacterial activity was determined on eight different Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial strains. The strongest inhibitory activity on the DNA gyrase enzyme was achieved by compound 14 with a mean inhibitory concentration (IC50) of 2.59 nM. For compound 8, the IC50 value was also in the nanomolar range and was 27.2 nM. The compounds also achieved excellent results in antibacterial testing. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC90) of compounds 8 and 14 were the lowest in Gram-negative K. pneumoniae, 0.125 μM and 0.03125 µM respectively. Compound 14 showed stronger inhibition of all bacterial strains compared to compound 8, which had a MIC90 value of 4 µM in E. coli.
The N-phenylpyrrolamide compounds prepared in the framework of this diploma thesis proved to be effective inhibitors of DNA gyrase B with very good antibacterial activities. The prepared compounds thus represent a very good basis for the design of compounds that would form even stronger interactions in the ATP-binding site of the enzyme and would have appropriate physicochemical properties.
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