A new class of phenylhydrazinylidene derivatives as inhibitors of Staphylococcus aureus biofilm formation

Article abstract of DOI:10.1007/s00044-016-1535-9

In the struggle against the emergence of the antibiotic resistance, new molecules targeting biofilm formation could be useful as adjuvant of conventional antibiotics. This study focused on a new class of 2-phenylhydrazinylidene derivatives as antivirulence agents. The compound 12e showed interesting activities against biofilm formation of all tested Staphylococcus aureus strains with IC₅₀ ranging from 1.7 to 43 μM; compounds 12f and 13a resulted strong inhibitors of S. aureus ATCC 6538 and ATCC 29213 biofilm formation with IC₅₀ of 0.9 and 0.8 μM, respectively. A preliminary study on the mechanism of action was carried on evaluating the inhibition of sortase A transpeptidase. Compound 12e resulted not to be toxic at 1 mg/ml by using an in vivo model (the wax moth larva model, Galleria mellonella).