In the past few decades, there has been a significant increase in the resistance of bacteria to existing antibiotics, which indicates the coming of an era in which there will be fewer and fewer treatment options for bacterial infections. Bacterial infections are treated with antibacterial agents that can work through five basic mechanisms of action, but many bacteria have already developed natural or acquired resistance to these mechanisms. The discovery of new antibacterial agents can be aided by a compound library screening method, in which a large number of compounds are tested to identify those that exhibit antibacterial activity. The active substances can have a bactericidal or bacteriostatic effect. One of the key parameters for evaluating antibacterial activity is the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), which is the lowest concentration of the active substance that still inhibits the growth of the bacteria. As part of my master's thesis, I evaluated the antibacterial activity of a book of compounds from the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Ljubljana against two bacterial species from the Enterococcus genus, namely Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium. Using the dilution method, we determined the MIC of fifteen compounds that showed antibacterial activity in the initial test, among 1971 tested compounds. Effective antibacterial activity against EFS was demonstrated by compounds 1, 2, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, and 15, which had MIC values lower than 128 µg/mL. Seven compounds, namely 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 demonstrated effective antibacterial activity against the EFM bacterium. The compound 7 showed the lowest MIC value, inhibiting the growth of EFS bacteria at a concentration of 2 µg/mL, and also showed the most pronounced antibacterial activity against EFM bacteria, which it inhibited at a concentration of 4 µg/mL. Compounds 3, 4, 5, 6 and 10 did not show antibacterial activity against EFM and EFS bacteria even at the highest tested concentration, which may indicate bacterial resistance, taking into account the possibility of too low concentrations due to additional dilution of the basic solutions. The compound with a known mechanism of action is compound 12, which acts on DNA gyrase. Compound 7, which demonstrated effective antibacterial activity in combination with a low minimum inhibitory concentration, is a starting point for further research and could be used in the future in the development of new antibacterial agents.
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