Design, synthesis and antimicrobial activities of nitroimidazole derivatives containing 1,3,4-oxadiazole scaffold as FabH inhibitors

Nitroimidazoles and their derivatives have drawn continuing interest over the years because of their varied biological activities, recently found application in drug development for antimicrobial chemotherapeutics and antiangiogenic hypoxic cell radiosensitizers. In order to search for novel antibacterial agents, we designed and synthesized a series of secnidazole analogs based on oxadiazole scaffold (4-21). Among these compounds, 4 and 7-21 were reported for the first time. These compounds were tested for antibacterial activities against Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus. This new nitroimidazole derivatives class demonstrated strong antibacterial activities. Escherichia coli β-ketoacyl-acyl carrier protein synthase III (FabH) inhibitory assay and docking simulation indicated that the compounds 2-(2-methoxyphenyl)-5-((2-methyl-5-nitro-1H-imidazol-1-yl)methyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole (11) with MIC of 1.56-3.13 μg/mL against the tested bacterial strains and 2-((2-methyl-5-nitro-1H-imidazol-1-yl)methyl)-5-(2-methylbenzyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole (12) with MIC of 1.56-6.25 μg/mL were most potent inhibitors of Escherichia coli FabH.