The fight against bacterial infections is considered one of humanity's greatest successes. The discovery of antibiotics helped to improve the quality of life and the rapid development of medicine. Recently, we have witnessed increasing bacterial resistance, which represents an increasing threat to public health, and the development of new antibacterial agents is becoming crucial.
Development of a synthesis route for the preparation of new MurA ligase inhibitors, the key enzyme that catalyses the first stage of peptidoglycan biosynthesis and thus prevents the further synthesis of the cell wall was the purpose of the master's thesis. As part of the experimental work, we planned and synthesized new compounds based on the imitation of the natural substrate and the molecular anchoring of a previously prepared library of glucosamine derivatives into the active site of the MurA enzyme. We started with N acetylglucosamine, to which various lipophilic fragments were attached to the nitrogen at position 2, and position 6, was oxidized to a carboxylic acid. We paid special attention to the search for the most optimal route of selective oxidation of the primary hydroxyl group in the presence of unprotected secondary hydroxyl groups. We managed to synthesize eight compounds.
Finally, with the help of biological testing on the MurA enzyme isolated from E. coli, the inhibitory action, and the specificity of binding to the target enzyme were evaluated by determining the IC50 and Hill coefficient of the synthesized glucosamine derivatives. We demonstrated the inhibitory activity of four synthesized molecules, of which compound 13 proved to be the best, as its inhibitory concentration is comparable to compound 7 and better than compound 10, while the Hill constant is comparable to compound 10 but the enzyme inhibits at a lower concentration.
Based on the obtained results, we concluded that the size of the lipophilic fragment and the absence of polar fragments at position 2 of the glucosamine skeleton are significant for a tighter and more specific inhibitory action.
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