Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of 5′-C-piperidinyl-5′-O-aminoribosyluridines as potential antibacterial agents

The discovery of new antibiotics is critical because the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria has posed a serious public health problem. Caprazamycins, which are nucleoside antibiotics, are a promising lead with a novel mode of action, and we have designed simplified analogues containing a piperidine as a scaffold linking the crucial structural units of caprazamycins. These analogues were step-economically synthesized via a sequential aza-Prins-Ritter reaction. Among the tested compounds, the analogue 7 exhibited good MraY inhibitory activity, antibacterial activity against Gram-positive bacterial strains including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant Enterococci, and metabolic stability. The observed cytotoxicity of 7 against HepG2 cells was overcome by modulating the fatty acyl side chain. The knowledge obtained from our structure-activity relationship studies of the caprazamycins will provide further direction toward the design of potent MraY inhibitors.