The fight against bacterial resistance to antibiotics is becoming an ever-increasing problem in the modern world, making ongoing efforts to develop new antibacterial agents crucial. By finding inhibitors of enzymes involved in bacterial cell wall formation, we are in a good position to achieve this. An attractive target for the synthesis of new compounds is the enzyme MurA, which is essential for cell wall synthesis in Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria as it catalyses the first step of peptidoglycan biosynthesis.
The aim of this Master thesis was to synthesise new potential inhibitors of MurA by attaching acidic functional groups to the NH2 group of N-acetylglucosamine derivatives. In this way, we synthesised final products with a free COOH or free OH group substituent on the nitrogen on side 2. For the final products, we also wanted the groups OH to be in free form at the C3 and C4 sites, as they form important interactions with the catalytic site of the MurA enzyme.
The syntheses were carried out in six steps. First, the C1-OH group was protected by the synthesis of monomethyl acetal. Then the OH groups were protected at the C4 and C5 sites with benzylidene. In the third step, basic hydrolysis of the acetyl group was carried out on the nitrogen to produce a compound with a free amino group. In the next step, various substituents with protected acid group were attached to it. In the last two steps, the acid group protection of the substituents and the benzylidene protection were removed.
Purity and identity of the intermediates and final products were determined by nuclear magnetic resonance, infrared spectroscopy, high-performance liquid chromatography, high-performance mass spectrometry, thin-layer chromatography, specific optical rotation and melting point measurements.
The residual activity of MurA ligase from E. coli was measured with final products and with benzylidene-free compounds from the penultimate step of the synthesis. Only compound 17 showed sufficient residual activity (below 40 %) to also measure IC50 value. This measured value of 1548 µM was too high, thus compound 17 is too weak at inhibiting MurA ligase but can be used for further development of better inhibitors.
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